girl at the end of the chain
by starlineshine
Summary: Tenten is a nobody and she refuses to accept this.
1. eyes of the girl staring back

This fic was cowritten by me and user _falterth_ on ao3! please go check them out bc they're fantastic and the reason this fic is so good. if you wanna join the discord server this was born in, pm me! thanks love you please enjoy

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 **girl at the end of the chain**

When Tenten joined the ninja academy, she did it because there was no one there to stop her. She was five years old and slept in a tiny cot at the orphanage, constantly surrounded by the smell of other children, by the noises of other children, and if Tenten wanted to be a ninja, the matron was never going to have the time or the energy to argue.

A part of Tenten almost wanted her to, though. She wanted the matron to grab her little hand on the way out the door and say _no_. That's too dangerous. Come back inside. But the matron had so many children to watch and was never going to have the time or the energy so Tenten became a ninja because there was no one to stop her.

When she first walked into the classroom with the straps of her secondhand backpack clenched tight in her tiny hands, she stared out at her new classmates, at the sea of them, at all of the children who wanted to be shinobi, same as her. When she woke up that morning and knew it was going to be her first day she woke up early. She cut her fingernails and brushed her hair and carefully braided it back, her tiny fingers not nimble yet, but nimble enough. But when she saw her classmates she knew it could hardly be enough. Those children had something to them she didn't. They had something she couldn't have ever emulated or copied. They were all clean—and she was clean, too, Tenten made sure of it—but they had shiny hair and freshly washed faces, and it was something in their faces.

Those children all had someone to love them. Tenten had no one, but this was never going to stop her.

She can take care of herself. Clip her own nails, wash her own face, brush her own hair. She can take care of herself, and she does.

Tenten runs the brush through her hair again, slowly, letting each pull on her scalp pull her back from her self-pity. A new day. A new morning. Maybe she can be a new girl. She looks into the mirror in her one room apartment—it's kind of yellowed—and stares into the eyes of the girl looking back. She looks in the mirror at her brown eyes and her brown hair. She always does her hair like this in the morning.

She first decided on it when she was seven and had her hand splayed over a drawing of Uzumaki Mito in her history textbook. Uzumaki Mito had been a legend. Maybe it isn't right to copy legends, but Tenten likes to think that Mito is just lending her some strength.

When she pulls her hair up, she doesn't see a legend. Tenten sets down her brush, but she's still looking in the mirror. Sometimes when she's getting ready in the morning, looking in the mirror, she stops and stares at herself, as though the girl she sees is a wild creature and not an average Konoha kunoichi named Tenten. She fixes her hair into their buns, into the same hairstyle Uzumaki Mito wore, but she's looking into the mirror and thinking: plain. Average. Boring. Unimportant.

It's just Tenten looking in the mirror and wishing she could be a legend.

Sometimes if she stares hard enough into her eyes, if she looks deep enough and looks long enough, they don't seem so brown anymore. She wants to tell herself that her eyes have a little bit of a purple tint, that they're prettier this way and it makes her _special._ But then she blinks and they're back to mud and she feels stupid for being stopped by her reflection for so long.

Tenten steps away from the sink. Her hair is up, her teeth are brushed—it's another day, but it isn't a normal one. Team Gai isn't meeting up at the usual place.

She comes from nothing and she knows that. It isn't an excuse—look at Lee, look at the way he came from nothing and, if anything, is better for it—and that just makes her feel pathetic, the way Lee has no one to go home to and no one to brush his hair for him and nobody to make sure he's washed his face, his hands, himself properly.

He still manages. No—he doesn't _just_ manage. He excels. And she's just . . . Tenten.

She's just Tenten, and today, on a day that isn't normal, she's even more average—one face among a crowd-to-be of chuunin hopefuls, one plain brown-haired, brown-eyed girl drowning in a sea of bright and colorful people. She picks her way through the apartment towards the door, stepping delicately over misplaced kunai and discarded axes. She rescues the ones she thinks look particularly sharp. When she leaves she locks the door behind her. She always locks the door because everyone locks the door, but there isn't anything in there anyone could possibly want.

She's got some rice in there. It's still in the pot. It's a bit too crunchy from getting burnt while she was cooking it. Tenten can't afford a rice cooker so she has to make it herself, and she hasn't quite learned how to stir at the right time. Thieves are welcome to it, if they'd even set their standards that low.

She walks into the chuunin exam building with Neji and Lee—Lee's a taijutsu genius but at least he doesn't rub it in, while Neji's a genius in general and definitely rubs it in—and she doesn't feel _real._ She feels fake, a fake girl on a real team full of _real_ shinobi, with her weapon scrolls and her knowledge and her jutsus and—she feels pale compared to these vibrant people around her. Tenten's always worked her hardest and tried her best. It usually isn't exactly enough.

She knows she's competent. She's a competent genin. But a competent chuunin? That's something for shinobi like Neji and Lee.

Neji's the one who realizes that it's a genjutsu and that they're not actually on the third floor. He notices immediately. It's kind of annoying, because he didn't even have to activate his eyes. Neji's the type of person who can see through people and things with or without his Hyuuga heritage. He looks at someone and already knows everything about them. It makes her feel a bit itchy. When he looks at her she wonders what he sees.

She almost asked him once but the words on her mouth made her realize she honestly didn't want to know.

"Should we just head upstairs?" Tenten asks. She knows the way this typically goes when Team Gai has to interact with enemy shinobi. Tenten plays the fool. She plays dumb and incompetent because she's the closest thing on Team Gai to incompetent. She gets it: people underestimate her. It's smart to capitalize on that. She just really, really hates it.

Neji gives her a look. The look is kind of . . . She doesn't know what it is. But it makes her feel inferior. He's usually the one to suggest Tenten playing the fool. Maybe he doesn't get that she hates it. Maybe he doesn't really think it matters. They're shinobi. Her opinion isn't important, but a strategic advantage is. She still hates it.

"Yes!" Lee pumps a fist in the air. Neji rolls his eyes—she thinks. It's hard to tell. "Let's go!"

Thank god for Lee.

Team Gai walks past just slowly enough to seem casual. There's a chance they don't even look like they're here to take the exam, although Tenten doesn't put much hope into that thought. It's not that they're bad at stealth. The way they sneak past would impress Gai-sensei—Tenten _knows_ it. Those stealth lessons hadn't been for nothing. But Lee has always hated being sly—he's _Lee_ —and Neji's a Hyuuga prodigy, _the_ Hyuuga prodigy, so it's kinda hard for him to be on the down-low.

There's a fight happening near the door to one of the rooms. It looks awfully exciting, and Tenten catches herself wishing that she would be involved in something as out-of-the-norm as that. One of the younger kids get punched in the face. It looks like it really hurts. Tenten aches with jealousy, but walks right up the stairs anyway. If Team Gai got in a fight down there Tenten probably wouldn't be allowed to participate anyway. Neji and Lee are just . . .

Sometimes she thinks their teamwork needs some work.

They wait inside the exam room for a while. Tenten's tapping her finger on her thigh. It's soundless and calms her nerves but after probably twenty or thirty minutes of this—of tap tap tap tap tap tap tap all of her anxiety coming out in tap tap tap tap tap—Neji gives her a look. Lee's practically bouncing off the walls, but that's normal for Lee. Neji's given up trying to chide him.

Tenten's the one getting scolded. Tenten doesn't have quirks, doesn't do things like Lee does, so when she starts doing them she's not allowed to. She has to play the straight man here, the normal to counteract Neji's holier-than-thou aura and Lee's high-energy personality. A part of her thinks Team Gai needs her to be normal, needs her to be well-adjusted and free from eccentric habit.

Neji can say so much in a look. It's probably because his eyes are so big. And because he prefers to make faces instead of talking—he's got this down to an art.

She stills her fingers and waits more peaceably until the last of the last have trickled in, and tries to ignore the small chakra-induced headache that being in the same room with so many signatures—especially that Naruto kid, his is so loud—gives her.

The proctor for this stage is a scary man—it goes without saying, really, since he's the head of T&I—but Tenten's met him before and she isn't as intimidated as some of the other genin are. Neji goes tense next to her and Lee stares at the proctor with something between apprehension and excitement on his face. Lee loves a challenge. Neji loves _winning_ challenges. Tenten glances around the room, scanning them.

Wow. They look . . . terrified.

She tries to feel bad for them, she really does—but she can't help thinking that genin like them mean that there's less competition for her. At least she has the respect not to smile openly. Instead she lets herself get away with a tiny one, so small that only Neji, who's been trained to recognize facial expressions, would notice it.

After seats are assigned it's a bit harder to see her teammates, but they're still visible so she doesn't feel worried. The proctor—Morino Ibiki—had given them all a good little snarling beforehand. A real scary speech. She's pretty sure some of the younger genin came close to pissing themselves. The basics are: This is a written exam. This exam is very difficult. Do not cheat. No, I'm serious. No cheating. This exam will likely be impossible for you, but for a chuunin, it would be easy. You are going to fail it. No, I really think you will. This exam is extremely difficult.

Tenten rolls her eyes. Like her team is going to struggle. They won't have to cheat to slide easily through this one. She shares a glance with Neji from her seat in the back and then shoots another at Lee. Lee doesn't fully get the message she's sending but the grin he gives her is reassuring.

Team Gai has this exam basically completed.

 _x_

"Lee," Tenten sighs, "your ears are still bleeding. Are you _sure_ you don't need a medic? Because I'm kind of thinking about dragging you off to—"

"Fear not, Tenten! My youthfulness will overcome any injuries I have!" Lee smiles at her, wobbling a bit on his feet, and Tenten holds back her own smile. The forest hadn't seemed like a big deal at first. She'd gone on more dangerous camping trips. And it wasn't even dangerous, until Lee shoved himself into a fight between some Oto nin and one of the younger Konoha teams, Team Seven. When questioned, he'd said something about honor and helping out other Konoha nin but she'd seen the girl—Sakura—just as well as he had, so she wasn't fooled.

Thinking about it makes something crawl along her spine. There had been something wrong with one of the genin. Uchiha Sasuke—there'd been something wrong about him. She could feel it. When she looked at him it'd been like she had walked from sunshine into rain, with her clothes sticky to her skin and her hair limp around her shoulders. That hadn't happened—Sasuke was just Sasuke—but she still has to shake her head against the image.

Lee wobbles again. He gives her a grin and a thumbs up. "I am doing fantastic," he announces. This doesn't stop her from dragging him off to go see a medic, though. They've got roughly a day before the next stage, and she's _not_ about to risk her teammate running around with injured ears during their chuunin exam. Luckily, it's not that serious—or so the medic says—and it only takes about fifteen minutes for Lee to be back to normal.

Or, well, as normal as he can get.

They're shooed out of the medic station and the pair of them drift off into the corner of the room to wait for Neji. He'd said something about checking out the competition, and about trying to see what exactly was up with Sasuke. He'd gone off looking even moodier than usual and with a quiet mutter of, "Chakra on his shoulder," and then he'd been gone. He's right, if she thinks about it more. The feeling started in his shoulder, in his neck, maybe, and then ached around his body, tight on him like plastic wrap.

Tenten doesn't think they're back yet—if someone with chakra as abundant and massive as Naruto was in the building, she doesn't think she could miss it. Naruto's isn't heavy, at least, not like rich frosting or pouring rain—it had always felt more like gravity had increased and was pushing against her shoulders.

She pauses. Adjusts her posture. Nope, normal gravity here.

Even without Naruto's chakra howling, feeling like wind threatening to shove her over, she thinks she can already feel the beginnings of a headache coming on—there are so many people in this room with her and she can feel their chakra signatures, not visual, but _there_ all the same like pressure on her eyelids and it's irritating. It's like humidity, like she's covered in someone else's sweat.

"Nothing," someone says, and the noise washes gradually into her ears until she recognizes that it's Neji talking. She takes a moment to berate herself for letting herself become lost in her thoughts, for being caught unaware, and then she turns to Neji questioningly. "They're not here. I assume that you already know who else to look out for?"

He says he assumes it, but the way he asks holds an implication of the opposite.

Tenten doesn't let her fingers twitch, but it's a close call. "Yes, we do, but it'd be helpful if you let us know what you saw."

Lee isn't paying attention to the conversation as much as she would like—his eyes keep bouncing away from one person to the next in excited little darts of his pupils—but she bumps her shoulder against his in solidarity. Sometimes she and Lee are united against Neji and sometimes she and Neji have to talk Lee down from his more ridiculous ideas. Right now she wishes Lee would look at Neji straight on the way she's looking at him. The united front always gets him to cave.

Tenten loves being the one to switch sides. She always wins.

Neji sighs deeply, like it's putting an actual strain on him to tell them. Tenten hold herself back from rolling her eyes, partly because he'd never tell if she did and partly because his pretentious facial expression is endearing. He says, "The trio from Sand, especially the one with the kanji on his forehead; a Kusa nin with cold chakra that I haven't seen since the first stage; Sasuke, although I'm not sure what's wrong with him; and the white-haired one with the glasses. He might be the most dangerous. He's definitely got jounin-level chakra reserves, but he's acting like he's pathetic." Neji's eyes narrow. He's still got his Byakugan activated and is occasionally scanning the crowd with it. The chakra drain doesn't matter to him. She knows he's confident he can beat any of the genin in the room. "I can't believe he's been a genin for so long."

"Thank you, Neji," Tenten says, and it's sincere but it's a little bit strained, and she just hopes that whatever the next stage is will _start_ already because she's working herself up into a thunderstorm of nerves and nervous energy. Tenten's always had just a hint more anxiety than a ninja is supposed to. She wants to start tapping her finger on her thigh again—it's louder in here now, with more genin spilling into the tower each passing hour, so it's not like she'd be obnoxious—but Neji's got an anxiety, too. It isn't nervous energy. It's just controlling.

Look, Tenten loves her team. That doesn't mean Lee isn't painfully excited about everything and Neji painfully self-assured he's _right_ about everything.

Neji looks over at her. "Of course," he says, like she hadn't had to pull the information from his mouth like pulling teeth. He looks her and Lee up and down. "You two need the help to pass whatever comes next."

She wants to bristle automatically—she's not charity and she's not weak, she trained for this, she fought for this, Tenten is going to be a _legend_ —but instead she tries not to react at all. Lee's ears aren't bleeding anymore, but he did get kicked around a lot by those Oto nin in the forest. Neji's probably concerned for them but he doesn't know how to express it without also looking down on them. He's Neji. She isn't surprised.

Tenten pokes a bit further through the tower, feeling around the entrances for any chakra coming in. The time limit is coming closer and closer—probably just a night of hours now—and she still hasn't caught any bits of Sasuke or Naruto's chakra yet. Maybe they won't make it through. It'd be a shame, since Lee went to the trouble—

She hisses. Naruto's definitely here. His chakra is already giving her a migraine and Tenten hurriedly pulls away from trying to sense out anymore of it. Her eyes sting. She hadn't actually _seen_ the chakra, not literally, but it still feels like she's been burned. How could anyone have a chakra that bright?

Her eyes go down to the arena. She isn't sure why there needs to be one if this is just some sort of congratulations for passing. From the corner of her eye, she can see Team Seven talking amongst themselves.

They look an absolute mess.

Naruto looks energized, bouncy, the usual, but something about the energy feels more alert than normal. His jumpsuit's torn in multiple places and he looks like he hasn't slept for days. There's blood dried on the cloth and dirt on his hands, but no visible injuries, at least. Someone—a medic-nin, probably—rushes over to him and starts frantically saying something to him, hands waving and—and then their eyes land on Sasuke, who's unconscious and who looks about a few minutes away from dying. Tenten cringes. Sakura's there beside them, and her hair is ragged, cut roughly with the ends unclean and uneven, and she looks _angry_ and she's yelling something at the medic-nin.

Tenten doesn't feel bad for eavesdropping or for watching. Orphans learn to snoop constantly into someone else's business. Not like she has cable, so where else would she get entertainment? She channels a small amount of chakra to her ears so that she doesn't miss out on anything, easily rerouting her usual chakra circulation. Neji gives her a side look. She tilts her head, exaggeratingly listening. He snorts and she can't stop the smile that spreads itself across her face.

". . . needs to be _healed,_ medic-san! Look at him!"

"There's something that we have to do _first,_ " the medic explains quietly, urgently, and their hands quickly light up green. Their face is just mildly pulled in discomfort, like they're seeing something twisted and aren't sure how to hide the emotion. "And we can't take the time to heal him fully until the—"

"You don't know what was _in_ there!" Sakura shouts. Tenten flinches—she didn't need enhanced hearing to hear that one. Sakura's got her hands in fists and Tenten can tell she's shaking. "He _needs_ someone to take a look at—mmph!"

The medic's right hand is covering Sakura's mouth, their left on Sasuke's forehead. Sakura shoves the medic's hand off in simmering silence. "We don't know how long healing him will take. The preliminary stage is tomorrow, once the last of the stragglers get here, and—"

Sakura's expression becomes thunderous, and the medic's face hardens. "The _what?_ Someone _bit_ him and put that—that _thing_ there. He _needs_ to get it off and—and there was this snake thing and—and—" She starts to stumble over the words. It isn't like she's afraid, or unsure. It's more like the words are choking her, like the effort it takes to get them out leaves her throat scratched up and full of claw marks.

"Haruno-san," the medic says lowly, quietly, with just a hint of steel, and Sakura's expression goes even angrier, "we'd better move this conversation to another room. Follow me." The medic looks back down at Sasuke and their expression twists a little again before carefully smoothing. When they look up at Naruto the facade shakes. "U-Uzumaki-san, please go to the medic station to have your injuries treated and to receive new clothing," the medic instructs, pointing to the medic station. Then they beckon for Sakura to follow them, picking Sasuke up and carrying him princess-style to wherever they're headed. It would be funny if Sasuke's head wasn't lolling over their arm, if his body wasn't limp and sprawling. Tenten stops looking after they ascend the first flight of stairs. It feels too personal, and she doesn't need to listen anymore.

She doesn't feel guilty for it. She never does. Tenten grew up alone: a watcher, an observer, someone on the outside examining the lives of those within. Tenten grew up on the fringe, eyes wide and soaking up all the interactions she wasn't allowed to have.

"Tomorrow," she whispers, hoping that she isn't loud enough to warrant any attention. She scrunches her nose up and looks at her team. Lee turns to her immediately but Neji takes a few seconds. She clears her throat just loud enough for Neji to look over at her, eyebrow raised, but no one else spares her a glance. "A preliminary. Tomorrow."

Neji scoffs, likely annoyed she even thought this information was worthy of his time. "We won't need to worry about it." He pauses, looks her and Lee over again. She wants to roll her eyes so badly they practically ache with the need. "At least—I won't."

"We'll pass," Tenten says drily. Lee nods his head in such excited agreement she takes a small step away from him just to make sure he has all the space necessary.

"Yes," Neji agrees easily, flippantly, like he doesn't even have to think about it. "You two will probably pass with ease. This is mainly to weed out the ones who returned toward the later end of the time limit. No doubt they'll be exhausted and unable to continue."

"That's kind of sad," Tenten says without thinking, forgetting to filter what she says so that she doesn't make Neji go off on a tangent.

Lee is suspiciously silent.

"Sad?" Neji echoes, unimpressed, and Tenten prepares to sit through another one of his lectures on fate. She's never fought with him on them, but she can't find it in herself to agree. Tenten's been the one left behind before. It wasn't great. She had to claw herself up from nothing. She chose her _own_ path. She doesn't see why Neji won't pull that damn stick out of his ass and admit that maybe it's not all about what happens before—it's what you do in the moment that matters, it's what you _make_ happen that decides who you're going to be. Fate doesn't care if Tenten becomes a legend or not. That burden falls solely on her. "It's fate. Those who are weak are _destined_ to fall behind. The ones who haven't arrived yet fell behind; they arrived _late._ It's nobody's fault but their own that they were not talented enough to have been in any sort of shape to go through a preliminary exam." He finishes off the entire thing with a mildly impertinent, securely scornful snort.

Tenten sighs.

"All right!" Lee says, pumping a fist into the air. The looks Tenten avoided earlier all fly to them. Most of the other genin look scared or uncomfortable or both, so Tenten makes the choice not to feel embarrassed. "It is decided! We will crush the competition!"

God, she loves Lee. She grins and bumps her shoulder against his. "Right!" Tenten claps him on the back and risks doing the same for Neji—the expected irritated glare shows itself on the boy's face in response—before her mouth goes from upturned to a more restrained thin line. A preliminary . . . She sighs. "If they need to cull our numbers, it's probably going to be a fight."

Tenten's tired. She's a shinobi, but just this once, she doesn't want to fight anyone. She'd really rather take a nap. Even just curling up in her usual sleeping bag, the one she pulls out for long missions, would be a wonderful reprieve. She's got mud and sweat caked on her skin, and she knows that the life of a shinobi isn't easy work, that it's going to be dirty and disgusting and everything she would have hated as a little girl, but _gods—_ she really needs a hot shower and a bed to sleep in. At the very least she wants some privacy to scrape a bit of the dried mud off.

"I really need a shower," Tenten says, just for the hell of it. She isn't sure Lee _ever_ feels the urge to shower; the amount of sweat that he produces in any given day of training never seems to bother him. Neji, she imagines, is the kind of person to be religiously clean, but he's also the type to value suffering in silence, so he's never voiced disdain towards the dirtier work they have to do as shinobi.

She _could_ use a water jutsu on herself, but . . .

"If you clean me off with a water jutsu I'll attempt to dry you with some wind ones," Neji offers, like performing a bunch of jutsu before their match in front of prying eyes is a good idea. "I doubt that the proctors are using all of these rooms."

Well then.

It's tempting. _Very_ tempting. It's fair trade and she would be _clean_. Hmm. She spares a thought for her chakra reserves that is quickly dismissed—the forest had been disgusting and now it's _all over her_ of course she's going to pick being clean, and besides, she's only ever had a single brush with chakra exhaustion before—and when she nods her fervent agreement Neji spares her a rare pleased look.

Half an hour later finds Tenten and Neji clean and dry—and Lee, because of _course_ they'd help him out, they aren't awful, no matter _what_ Tenten thinks of them all sometimes—and ready to take a nap.

"Should we set up a watch system?" Lee asks. "It would be most un-youthful of us to sleep through the preliminary!"

Tenten nods. "I'll—"

"I'll take first watch," Neji cuts in, sending her a look. The mildly content expression he'd had after she'd washed him clean was absolutely gone now. "Your chakra reserves are smaller than mine, which is why you should rest first and regenerate chakra. Your water jutsu took far more out of you than my wind jutsu did me. Lee, you rest, too. I refuse to be seen walking around with two people who look like they're about to keel over."

Ouch. Clan kids sure can be mean.

Tenten thinks that it means he cares, though, or at least she hopes that's what it means. She makes a show of leaning back on the floor, mockingly curling up with her head cushioned on her hands. _You could be sleeping, Neji. This could be you._

He rolls his eyes. Maybe. Hard to tell. But she likes to think he does. She's never entirely sure if he finds their conversations annoying or if it's some kind of inside joke—the fond kind of annoyance. It seems like a lot of teams are like that. From the little she'd seen of Team Seven, they had a relationship like that, one full of playful poking and endearing scoffs. It'd been so cute. Sasuke, completely above his team, constantly fondly irritated with them; Naruto, clearly desperate for his attention, or perhaps _anyone's_ attention; and Sakura, secretly amused by her idiot teammates. And the way they had looked after making it into the tower, Sasuke unconscious and his teammates clearly bristling with protective defensiveness—that's nice, Tenten thinks.

Tenten thinks her team is kind of like that.

And no matter how annoyed Neji might be with her, she already knows he would die for her. She would die for anyone on Team Gai. The feeling there is mutual. Tenten smiles a little, warmed by the thought, and stretches out her legs. She pokes Lee with her toes. He's already asleep. Tenten closes her eyes, adjusting on the uncomfortable concrete. She listens to Lee's loud snoring and Neji's almost silent breaths. It's soothing.

 _You could be sleeping,_ she thinks one last time, her mouth forming a smile again, and then she's asleep.

 _x_

Tenten's on watch, Neji and Lee sleeping—peacefully on Neji's part, really by sheer force of will, and with much twitching and snoring involved on Lee's part—on either side of her, when a door on the balcony slams open and a dark-haired kunoichi, who Tenten only belatedly realizes had been the proctor for the second stage, walks out. The doors smack into the walls and the kunoichi calls out, "Maggots!" Neji jerks awake immediately, his entire body tensing, muscle straining in his arms.

Chill, Tenten almost says. Instead she shakes Lee. He eventually comes to and swipes at the drool on his chin.

"Gather on the arena balcony, but leave some room between yourselves," Mitarashi-sensei shouts. "Preliminary stage starts now. We're weedin' ya out!"

"It's time for the preliminaries," Tenten whispers to Lee, still shaking him, hoping not to draw attention to them. It certainly works—everyone's laser-focused on Mitarashi-sensei. "Wake up." There's a couple people walking in behind her; a shinobi with dark hair and equally dark under-eye bags as well as, notably, the Hokage.

Tenten can't believe _the Hokage_ is going to watch _her_ fight. She feels a little giddy.

"Really?" Lee cries. Tenten decides he's giddy enough for the both of them when Lee actually leaps to attention. Some of the genin, still spooked from Mitarashi-sensei, suffer a serious shock a second time, eyes dashing across the room to stare at Lee. He starts to do extremely exaggerated stretches. "I am prepared to fight!"

Tenten sighs.

Quickly, all the chuunin hopefuls gather in a loose group around Mitarashi-sensei. Team Gai scrambles down from the balcony in the shuffle. Up above, jounin-sensei are starting to spill into the room. Tenten can sense Team Seven off somewhere to her left, and if she cranes her neck to look over the crowd she can actually see them. They all look a great deal better than they had yesterday. She's relieved for them. Most of the teams look loads better than they had earlier. Team Eight's clearly rested. Tenten feels a bit of pity for Team Ten. They'd walked in during her watch and they hadn't really gotten any time to rest—at most about an hour or two.

Mitarashi-sensei scans the large group with a critical eye. "Anyone wanna withdraw? Might be your only chance at getting out of this alive."

Some of the genin back away from her nervously. Tenten, who's always been the kind of girl to sit at the front of the classroom, holds her ground. If she allows herself to be cowed by someone like Mitarashi-sensei, she won't go far in the field. There's been a lot of times before when people gave her a chance to give up. She never accepted then. She's not going to accept now. People who give up don't become legendary.

Uzumaki Mito never gave up. Senju Tsunade never gave up—not during the war.

"I'll withdraw," someone—Kabuto, maybe, but Tenten's only about fifty percent sure that she's getting his name right, even if he _is_ another Konoha nin—says, raising his hand and laughing sheepishly. "I've never really done well in fights . . . "

Neji eyes him suspiciously. That's right: Neji said Kabuto had jounin level chakra reserves and no reason to play the loser. Two of the genin standing next to him, who Tenten assumes are his teammates—but then again, you can never really be sure with the older genin—follow suit, raising their hands and joining Kabuto as he's led out of the tower. They're all Konoha shinobi, and they're the only ones who give up.

 _Cowards,_ Tenten sees Neji mutter under his breath. She has to agree. They'd obviously made is this far, even through the clusterfuck that is Training Ground 44. They should at _least_ try. Where's their honor as shinobi? Their drive to move forward? Hadn't they grown up in the same Konoha she had, the same Konoha that she'd been longing so desperately to be known within? Where is their greed? Where's the urge to _become_ someone?

Tenten can't imagine anybody existing without it. She decides she pities them.

Mitarashi-sensei spits onto the ground as soon as the doors have shut behind the three of them. "Spineless little _worms,_ " she says venomously. "Dishonoring this village, the lot of them."

Tenten smiles to herself. At least the Leaf has shinobi like this, too. If this weren't an exam with her pride on the line, Tenten might have asked for an autograph.

The tired-looking shinobi coughs and Mitarashi-sensei nods to him. "Okay," he begins. "I'm Gekkou Hayate, the proctor for the preliminary." He motions to the digital letter board being pulled in through the doors and Tenten watches it get rolled in hungrily. "These will be one-on-one fights. Matchups are decided completely randomly. Conditions for a win are surrender, unconsciousness, death, or incapacitation of the opponent." He eyes the group. Coughs a little. "Aim to incapacitate, if possible. No jutsu or seals that will injure spectators. Other than that . . ." Gekkou-san shrugs. "This is pretty much a no-holds-barred fight. Ninjutsu, genjutsu, taijutsu, bukijutsu—you have the ability, go ahead and use it."

Tenten is more excited than she has any right to be. Now that she's actually well-rested, she's surprised to find herself raring to go. Her weapon scrolls weren't depleted in the forest and she can just see herself lashing them open, raining weaponry on some little genin. She thinks about the terrified faces she'd seen and surprises herself by her urge to made them even more afraid. God, half the people in the room probably don't stand a chance against her—and the other half are either chuunin or jounin. The people in this room she's going to fight? They're gonna lose to her and she wants someone to lose to her. She _wants_ to fight someone. She _wants_ to make someone surrender, or to knock them out cold, or—

"Don't get distracted," Neji says, flicking the back of her head. An involuntary indignant sound comes from her mouth. She turns to him with a small frown, but really, she's thankful that he pulled her out of her thoughts.

A random chuunin comes scurrying into the arena balcony and hands Mitarashi-sensei a little slip of paper. "Am I supposed to read this chicken-scratch?" she asks angrily before making a shoo-ing motion with her hand. The chuunin grimaces and books it out of the area. Tenten looks up at the second row balcony, searching past all the jounin sensei still finding their spots up there. When she sees Gai she grins. "Okay, since we've got an uneven number of people, that means someone gets a pass . . . " Anko bares her teeth. It is in no way a semblance of a smile. "Unfortunately." She pauses, and Tenten, along with the rest of the crowd, holds her breath in anticipation. Mitarashi-sensei makes a big show out of running her fingers over the slip of paper. She starts to look like her own drama is starting to make her feel the tension and eventually blurts, "Oh, fuck it. Uzumaki Naruto gets the bye. Consider yourself lucky. Or unlucky, depending on whether you wanted to fight or not."

Naruto's indignant shout is so loud it manages to make Tenten wince. "You're all lucky! I would have beaten _all_ of you up!" Neji sniffs in delicate disagreement. Lee only looks sad he missed the chance to fight him. Tenten guesses Naruto fits the "youthful" definition pretty well.

"Yeah, yeah," Anko dimisses, waving her hand. Naruto makes another offended noise. "Sure, brat."

"The first match will appear on the board shortly," Hayate-sensei says, jumping down into the arena and going over to consult with a chuunin stationed at one end of it. He seems to be satisfied with whatever he's asking after, or checking on, and he comes back to stand on one of the outside edges of the arena. He glances up at the digital board stationed behind him on the balcony. Tenten catches Gai's eyes again and he gives all three of them a thumbs up. It would be embarrassing if he weren't so earnest. "And . . . please try not to damage this thing. I paid for it."

He nods, once, at the chuunin at the end of the arena, and Tenten watches eagerly, impatiently, as each red letter slots into place. Lee's practically vibrating beside her and it's a rare moment where Neji and Tenten completely match him in enthusiasm. It's too slow for her, too much drama and too much build up and not nearly enough of her beating someone up—

A name's revealed, and then another. Neji inhales quickly, a gasp, something almost completely foreign to him, and Lee's enthusiastic vibration only intensifies.

 _Haruno Sakura,_ the board says, _versus Hyuuga Hinata._


	2. star of the show

an update! don't expect fast updates on this though it updates faster on ao3 because i'm really lazy and falterth is less so i really like this chapter so enjoy!

* * *

 **girl at the end of the chain**

A breath goes out of Tenten from a feeling she can't name— _relief I'm not fighting yet I'm not losing yet breathe breathe breathe_ or _anger I can win I can win I can win!_ maybe it's just something like _surprise Sakura? Hinata?_ —and she stares at the board. The tension is beginning to drain, now that the first match has been decided and it doesn't include her. For some reason, some selfish, self-absorbed reason, Tenten thought she would be the first fighter. The star of this show. Instead it's two rookie genin.

After her graduation, after being placed on Team Gai—she'd had this feeling then. Star of the show. Made it this far. Me, me, me. When she was a rookie and news of the Chuunin Exams being held in Kiri reached her she'd begged Gai to enter them. _The team isn't ready,_ he said. The team isn't ready. Tenten had calluses on her fingers and a collection of weaponry so vast and expensive, some nights she had gone without food to save up the money. Tenten had spiked wire sewn carefully into her pulled up hair in case someone tried to grab her by it; she'd been wearing weights around her ankles and her wrists, had been doing her katas until she ached and running sprints more than she could imagine every day. _The team isn't ready._

 _But I'm ready,_ she cried, pleading. If the team wasn't ready, how could she be? She knew back then she was probably the weakest on the team. If she could just convince Gai-sensei she was finally good enough, he would enter them. If she could get him to believe she was enough, if just _once_ someone believed Tenten was good enough, he would enter them. _I'm ready, I'm strong, I can do it—please!_

But Gai-sensei just said again, _The team isn't ready,_ and Tenten didn't go to Kiri to become a chuunin that year. So many of the Konoha rookie jounin sensei's this year entered their teams, and looking around, Tenten can tell a lot of them even made it through. It feels like a matter of pride now. Team Gai—all three of them—have to win. If they weren't ready last year, they have to be ready now.

Hinata's starting forward, slowly, uncomfortably, walking towards the stairs down from the balcony with her sensei's encouragement at her back. Hinata looks back at her sensei a couple times. Each time, the woman smiles and urges her on in excited little hand motions. Tenten doesn't know Hinata very well. She only knows Neji hates her.

She sneaks a peek at Neji. His face has flattened, the tiny gasp she caught from him already wiped cleanly off his skin. His eyes aren't scrunched, his lips not downturned. Neji doesn't look upset or surprised. The lacking in him is what gives him away—normally when he looks at the other genin he's unimpressed, superior. But looking at Hinata, watching her slowly pick her way down to the fighting pit, he doesn't look like anything.

Hinata and Neji have similar faces. They're both Hyuuga. They could be siblings. When they were younger, the two of them played together constantly, and Hinata frequently fell asleep curled against his side. Hinata's always been a soft child. She loved her mother and Neji. She loved her father, too, obviously, but he's harsh where's she quiet and strong where she falters. But she and Neji look alike. Their fathers were brothers, before Neji's died. It seems difficult to be a brother to a dead man. Hinata's always thought the dead have no families. She released her mother at the wake—be free, Mother, she had thought, tears collecting shamefully in the corners of her eyes and spilling down her cheeks. It's a mercy. Be free. She likes to imagine her mother reborn somewhere, happy and young. It's a kindness. Be free. But maybe it's possible. Are you still family after you're dead?

Neji must hope not. After all, Hinata thinks, looking up at him in the balcony after she makes her way down, he wants to kill her.

Just the thought makes her uncomfortable. She wishes it hadn't come. Neji can't want to _kill_ her. Hinata can't imagine wanting to kill anyone. She steps off the balcony stairs and into the arena, trying to force her eyes off her own feet. When she looks up, everyone's looking at her. Of course they are—she's about to fight. But Neji's looking at her, too. Hinata scans over them all and a part of her deflates. There's actually one person _not_ looking at her, and it's Naruto.

"You can do it, Sakura-chan!" Naruto pumps a fist in the air. Sakura gives him an annoyed look as she starts her way down the stairs. Sakura's always been kind to her and Hinata values kindness. But Hinata can't say that she's dreading this fight.

She's dreading _fighting,_ yes, but not this particular match-up. Sakura was top kunoichi of their class, and Hinata respects her for that. But Hinata—no matter how shameful—is the Hyuuga clan heir. And, besides . . . "Naruto, just shut up," Sakura says, sighing. Naruto doesn't flinch but Hinata does.

Look. Sakura's always been kind to her. And Hinata doesn't—she doesn't exactly hate Sakura, but it's irritating—no, that's a harsh word—it's a bit bothersome—no, that's still too much—it can be a bit trying to see her brush off Naruto like he's nothing. Like he means nothing to her, like he means nothing in general. Naruto's amazing. Maybe Sakura thinks liking Naruto would be some sort of weakness. If Hinata can prove to Sakura she's strong and she doesn't hate Naruto, strong and she likes Naruto, maybe something worthwhile will have happened.

Sakura comes down to stand in the arena just seconds after she does, and they stand on opposite ends—not too close, not too far, the perfect distance for keeping just out of range of any sudden attacks—and wait for Hayate-sensei to begin the match. Sakura smiles at her. She doesn't come right out and say, "Good luck," or anything but—but. It's almost like Sakura expects to win. Like she's throwing Hinata a kindness before her loss.

Naruto's still shouting down some vaguely encouraging stuff in Sakura's direction. Neji's still watching, emotionless, faceless. Hinata feels something in her—the thing inside her that has always ached, has always given up, has always only had tears to offer when her father demanded a strength she couldn't find—begin to burn.

It—the space inside her left unfilled after her mother died, the space inside her left empty after Neji started to hate her—has never done this before.

"Go," Hayate-sensei says.

Sakura whips out a kunai and Hinata wonders if Sakura's really prepared for this fight, if she knows anything about the Gentle Fist. If Sakura knows anything about her. The thought burns with guilty and indignity. Then again—Hinata doesn't exactly know much about Sakura, either, except she's probably a genjutsu type.

That isn't fair, though. Hinata's always wanted to know her better. She's tried before to start conversations with her, to do more than trail behind her and Ino back when the two of them were still friends. It just has never worked. Hinata opens her mouth and nothing comes out. She knows it's shameful, knows her father hates her for it and most other people pity her for it, but she opens her mouth and nothing comes out.

Sakura readjusts her grip on the kunai and looks her up and down, just once. When Sakura opens her mouth she can always speak. When Sakura opens her mouth, the words don't end up trapped in her throat, buzzing like flies, circling like vultures, falling back to her stomach like rocks. And Sakura knows when Hinata opens her mouth words don't come out.

She wonders if Sakura thinks she can beat her. Maybe she can. Maybe Hinata should be more afraid. Maybe she's going to lose here, Neji's eyes on her and Naruto's eyes on Sakura and it's going to be pathetic. Hinata blinks and Sakura throws the kunai. She almost forgets to dodge, her body tensing in a moment of refusal, a moment where none of her muscles move, before she flings herself sideways, the kunai bouncing off the concrete wall of the arena instead of lodging itself inside her chest.

Hinata can feel Neji's eyes on her. Watching.

She activates her Byakugan. Sakura's casual dismissal of Naruto, and Neji's silent judgement—these things have always been capable of shutting her down. But losing here—with Neji watching her and Naruto watching Sakura—it doesn't have to be an inevitability the way her own failures have always seemed. Hinata slides into her fighting stance, into her clan's stance. Her movements go quickly, an urge to prove herself biting at her ankles the way boot spurs encourage horses. She doesn't go into the Gentle Fist stance with ease or with comfort but with determination. And maybe that's enough.

She does a quick once-over of Sakura's chakra pathways. Definitely a genjutsu type. Sakura pulls another kunai from her pouch and leaps back, further away from Hinata, eyes going to Hinata's hands warily. It'd be easy enough to end the fight quickly, she thinks, unless Sakura's hiding some serious strength—doubtful, actually, because Sakura's showing her bare arms and there's not too much muscle there.

Sakura flings a kunai at her. Hinata dodges.

It's almost instinct to rush forward, and Hinata follows the urge, darting in and coming up on Sakura's left. Sakura raises her her arm, blocks the jab that's coming to her ribs. Hinata forces her fingers to change direction.

 _Whap._

She lands a solid hit on the back of Sakura's right hand. However—it's not enough to completely block the pathway there, and she'll still be able to use jutsu. Hinata regrets landing a weak blow, but she doesn't have time to do much more than that because Sakura's lashing out with more kunai and Hinata has to jump back quickly or risk being stabbed. Sakura's panting, just a bit, kunai held firmly in her left hand, her right shaking, fingers twitching

Hinata finds she's panting, too, but she can't let this fight drag on, so she's quickly back on the offensive. She's not the best at her clan's technique. She's never been the best at anything. She doesn't get praised or adored. Sakura was kunoichi of the year but Hinata finds—she's shocked to find—she doesn't want to lose. The nice girl in her is sorry that she's not making this more fair for her yearmate. The nice girl in her—the girl that cries when her father shouts at her and cries when her little sister beats her and cries when Naruto doesn't cheer for her, the girl wanting to cry now with Neji looking at her judging her hating her—that girl says to make it fair. She doesn't listen. The kunoichi in her tells her to hit harder. The kunoichi in her tells her to sweep in on Sakura's only halfway-protected right side, to shift easily from the different Gentle Fist stances she's learned. Hinata doesn't think about it for more than a second. She listens to the kunoichi.

In quick succession, she manages to land a hit on Sakura's unguarded right hip, two on her right leg, and another two on her left forearm—she'd meant to hit Sakura's stomach, but she'd failed because she hadn't gotten her arm up there quickly enough and for a moment she lingers on this, on the failure, but Sakura's chakra is sluggish now, bruises blossoming over her pale skin.

"Don't think you're about to win," Sakura warns her, bringing her leg up for a kick. Hinata hates to admit she's begun to feel heady with chakra, with the flow of the fight—she could win. She could win! She could win! Sakura's leg sweeps down and Hinata manages to block it without hurting her fingers. The blow makes both her arms ache. "I've still got some tricks up my sleeve."

"You can do it, Sakura-chan!" Naruto shouts. She thinks Kiba says something to him in reply, pushes at him, maybe, but Hinata doesn't look away. Sakura's face twists. Hinata's never fought to win before. Hinata looks at Sakura, at the way there's a tiny wrinkle at her right eyebrow, and thinks, again, _I could win._

She doesn't say that. She just pushes hard against Sakura's leg with her arms, watches the way Sakura stumbles backwards. Kurenai-sensei tells her not to indulge in talking during the middle of a battle. There's no point in it. _The goal is to win,_ Kurenai-sensei has told her, many times before. Hinata remembers back then that she'd thought this seemed an unlikely goal. Now Hinata has neither the nerve nor the breath to engage in a verbal spar with Sakura. She thinks maybe winning verbally in a fight is a goal she should have after she wins physically. Hinata's never won much of anything before.

 _The goal is to win,_ Kurenai-sensei has told her. _To win, and nothing else._ Hinata had thought this seemed a little overzealous. Now she feels sick with it, strong with it—she could win this fight. Neji's watching her and Naruto's watching Sakura and she can win.

Hinata doesn't wait for Sakura to right herself. Her right leg's shaky from Hinata's successful hits and when Hinata comes in close again, Sakura manages only to barely block and earn herself more bruises on her forearm in the process. The offensive belongs to Hinata. Sakura is stumbling, shaking, dodging backwards and quickly pinning herself into the arena wall. Sakura hasn't used any jutsu yet. This is basically a taijutsu spar—an easy one, a boring one, and one that Hinata's bound to win if Sakura doesn't actually start _trying._

The thought hits again, something inside her a fighter and screaming, _I could win_ and Hinata falls, trips, into a moment of distraction.

Sakura takes the chance and lashes out with two kunai, retrieving a third to wield in her hand. Hinata dodges out of the way of the first one but the second one catches her upper arm and snags in the fabric, ripping through and cutting her arm. Hinata jerks back quickly, a sharp flare of pain from the cut going ignored, and uses her uninjured arm to smack the kunai out of Sakura's hand. It bounces a couple times on the concrete. The metallic taps echo in her ears.

She realizes suddenly that this fight is a joke. She's not playing to win. She's thinking about winning, thinking, _I could win,_ but where is the effort? Where is the drive? Where is Hinata showing that she can do anything other than go easy on Sakura, to hit her a few times and dodge and miss over and over again?

Neither of them are taking this seriously. This fight is unimpressive enough to ache. Hinata, as the Hyuuga heir, can't afford to mess around in fights like this. Hinata, as Neji's cousin, can't afford to let him see her slacking off. And she doesn't want to embarrass herself in front of Naruto by not giving it her all. She can fight. She can win. Hinata's never been the best at anything but she can still _win_.

She's fighting to win, but she's not doing anything that she needs to do to actually achieve that victory.

Hinata removes herself from Sakura's reach, darting to the end of the arena. Sakura looks confused for a second, but beyond that, Hinata doesn't see, because she's busy gathering her chakra into a tight coil, twisting it around and around until it's about to burst. She keeps that chakra there and looks back toward Sakura, already berating herself for wasting precious time.

Sakura's close—really close. Hinata lets go of the tightly-wound chakra and lets her palms become an iron defense. A strong offense. It's disorienting, at first, because the force of the chakra makes her spin around once, twice, endlessly, but then she's facing Sakura again and steadily advancing. The technique is such that it's hard _not_ to move around erratically while going in any given direction—but Hinata won't wait for Sakura to come to her.

The look on Sakura's face makes Hinata think that she's only just realized how close she is to losing. For the first time in the fight something almost like fear flickers across Sakura's features like lightning, flashing and gone in an instant.

Hinata doesn't try to decide how she feels about this, about the look on Sakura's face when she finally, finally sees that Hinata could win. She doesn't try to decide how it would feel, how she would feel, if everyone in this room got that look on their face.

Sakura brings her hands up into the hand seals for a classic academy clone. It's textbook perfect and would fool most others in her age group, but when the two other Sakura copies buzz into existence, Hinata doesn't even blink. It's too bad for Sakura, really, that Hinata has the Byakugan and can easily see through the jutsu. The nice girl in her wants to commend Sakura for trying. It's a good effort. But Hinata just pushes toward the real Sakura and away from the clones, letting their images scatter.

Sakura reaches into her kunai pouch, hand grappling inside it desperately. Her eyes go away from Hinata and the distraction keeps her from dodging Hinata's next barrage of hits. One to her arm, one to a chakra point on her shoulder, one to her stomach. Sakura recoils backwards, pain all over her face. Her eyes go bright, her face lifts: she's found what she's been looking for her in her pouch. Sakura tries to pull out an exploding tag—Hinata recognizes the chakra embedded into it—but Hinata's there before she can charge it.

It's over quickly. Hinata lashes out with her palms, smacking _thwap-thwap-thwap,_ first against Sakura's arms and then she uses the next rotation to swing herself down so she can block any chakra heading to Sakura's feet. Her final hit—right on Sakura's chest, right on her main chakra point. Hinata's breathless. Not from exhaustion, not from the force of her hit, but from . . . pride. She's never executed the Gentle Fist perfectly before. And it's something _she_ did on her own. _She_ gathered her chakra. Nobody told her to do it, told her to gather it into a spiral and to let the whirling guide her arms. She did it _perfectly._

She's never gotten more than halfway through that stance before.

Sakura loses her balance and goes down heavily, eyes wide and disbelieving. Hinata almost hates that it comes as a surprise, hates the way Sakura's disbelief in her loss matches her father's disbelief in Hinata's competence, but she can sympathise with Sakura—the matchup really had been unfair, pairing a clanless civilian-born child against a Hyuuga from the main house. Hinata thinks the matches are probably rigged. The nice girl thinks for sure the matches are rigged. The nice girl feels a little bad about winning.

The shinobi is thanking her lucky stars for an easy fight.

"Winner: Hyuuga Hinata," Hayate-sensei announces.

Medics rush down into the arena, gathering Sakura up. The other girl's unconscious. A part of Hinata feels a little bad. Sakura's a good person. Another part of is nearly proud. Hinata's never won much. She deactivates her Byakugan and stumbles when the chakra exertion hits her. It's only a bit, only a small misstep of her feet, before she remembers herself, remembers Neji. She chances a glance up at the area where she last saw her cousin.

Neji's not there.

"Sakura-chan! You tried your hardest! That was awesome!" Naruto shouts from the balcony, drawing her attention away from the empty spot between Tenten and Lee. Tenten's leaning forward on the railing, smiling down at her. Hinata tries to pull some comfort from that. She crushes the disappointment that's trying to rise up in her chest. Sakura is Naruto's teammate; Hinata isn't. Of course Naruto would cheer for her. "You, too, Hinata! What even was that? I—"

This is when Sasuke clamps his hand over Naruto's mouth and drags him off toward the medic station where Sakura is being taken. Hinata watches him go. Naruto gives her a thumbs up over his shoulder just before he vanishes through the doors. She feels wobbly. A good kind of wobbly. If anyone asks she will blame chakra exhaustion.

Hinata flushes. Naruto had noticed _her._ Naruto had thought that _she_ was cool. The entire fight, Naruto hadn't just been watching Sakura. He'd been watching _her_. Her ears feel like they're going up in flames, her face being overtaken by a thick blush. Hinata climbs the stairs on the opposite end of the arena, a shaky smile slowly spreading out across her face. It only grows wider when Kiba claps her on the back and profusely apologizes when he sends her stumbling, when Shino pushes his glasses up and tells her that he was very impressed by the end of the fight. Kurenai-sensei leans in close, puts a hand gently on her shoulder

"I'm so proud of you," Kurenai-sensei tells her, smiling.

Hinata blinks back tears.

She risks another quick look at Tenten's team, and Neji's back now. As though he could sense her eyes on him—and Hinata wouldn't put that past him—he turns around. Hinata flinches automatically, eyes dropping to the ground, before she reminds herself that she needs to look up. And she's allowed to look up. She won. She's the Hyuuga clan heir and his cousin and she _won._

He—he looks angry. He looks angry for sure. But it's—it's a weird exasperated anger, the anger he looks at his teammates with. It's a fond anger, an endeared sort of irritation. It isn't the anger that he reserves especially for Hinata. But maybe she's just thinking too deep. Maybe it's nothing. Within a second, his face smooths out and the familiar glare is in place.

She smiles at him. Neji recoils as though repulsed, looks away.

It's the first time Neji has been the one to look away. It's the first time Hinata hasn't retreated in shame. It's the first time she's held his stare and forced her mouth to do something other than tremble from the fight to hold back tears.

"You did amazing, Hinata," Kiba says. He's grinning. Akamaru yips in agreement and when she reaches out to pet him he licks her hand.

 _Maybe I did,_ Hinata thinks. Maybe.

 _x_

Neji sniffs in a breath next to her. Tenten isn't gonna ask for details— _what's your damage were you crying again hey you good_ —but she pats a hand on his shoulder gently, tapping a couple times in comfort. It's enough to bring Neji right back to himself. He slaps her hand away, staring down his nose at her, all the usual wonderful egotistic Neji right back where it belongs on his face.

"That fight was amazing!" Lee cries. "Neji, why did you never speak of the youth your cousin possesses? And Sakura-san's miraculous effort . . . "

Neji goes stiff. Tenten sighs. Lee's usually a mood booster, what with the way he can't _read_ the mood. Sometimes it backfires.

"Oooh, look!" Tenten says loudly, pointing at the digital board as the letters start to spin again. It's an obvious distraction, but sometimes that's what Neji needs—reassurance that they're not going to poke and prod at him. _Loud_ reassurance. "Another fight! It could be us this time!"

Neji gives her another look, one that says, _I am trying my best not to have a conniption fit right now._ No matter how good she is at reading the mood, she's not the most adept at changing it. Luckily, Lee goes back to vibrating with excitement. "If it isn't my name," he says, "then I will sprint around the village at least two hundred times. I will climb to the top of the Hokage monument as well as climb back down a minimum of _three_ hundred times. I will—"

"Lee, it's randomized," Tenten says flatly. The names have clicked into place, and she waves her arm at the board. _Sabaku no Temari versus Abumi Zaku._ Not even Konoha shinobi. She doesn't recognize either name. "It isn't you." Lee deflates, leaning down against the railing limply. He looks defeated.

"It isn't me," he agrees. "Gai-sensei, do you think this match will be long enough to allow me the time to sprint around the village at least two hundred times? Will it be long enough for me to climb up and down the Hokage monument at least—"

Tenten claps a hand to her face. "No, young student," Gai-sensei intones solemnly. She brings her other hand up and covers her face in them. "To look away from the fighting of your peers shows the greatest lack of youth."

Lee stares up at Gai-sensei like he's said something meaningful. "Gai-sensei . . . " Tenten releases a small, pained noise into her hands. "You're right! Gai-sensei! I will watch the fights!" Lee leaps to his feet, pushing away from the railing, legs so straight his knees are probably locked. If he ends up passing out, Tenten isn't gonna catch him. "I, with the power of youth burning inside of me, will support my fellow genin!"

Tenten turns pointedly away from them, although she can still hear the barrage of _Lee!_ and _Gai-sensei!_ as the two of them probably start to cry over the power of youth and the amazement of fighting or something like that. There's a girl making her way to the fighting area—a bit older than Tenten, probably, maybe sixteen?—and one of the Sound nin is already down there, waiting. He's got ridiculously poofy hair and a bit of a limp, but still bares his teeth in something like a smile.

The girl—Temari?—takes one look at him, one solid glance, and gives a tiny little bark of a laugh. Tenten starts leaning against the railing a little bit, staring down at Temari with wide eyes. Temari's wild grin, teeth flashing in the light, puts Zaku's attempt to shame. Everything about her, Tenten thinks, seems almost too perfect. Her green eyes flash, hair glossy, and the—

The _thing_ on her back, the black rectangular thing, catching the light in a metallic glimmer. What is that? Is it some kind of weapon?

Tenten feels her hands tighten their grip on the railing. She can't wait to find out.

Hayate-sensei looks between the two of them. When he glances over at Temari, the girl's eyes brighten, her left hand twitching like it wants to reach for something. "Begin," Hayate-sensei says, and he hasn't even leapt back up to the balcony before Temari's hand—her left—goes to the rectangle at her back and pulls it free. Tenten's fingers go tight and then forcibly loosen, her fingers feeling twitchy and as though they're never going to be still again.

"I might not be at my best," Zaku warns, words interrupted by tiny cracks, like laughter but not as fully formed, "but you'll still never beat me."

Temari snorts, a full noise of disbelief. She bites her lip—Tenten's eyes follow the motion—like she's holding in a spiral of cackling. "I don't think that's true, kid," she says. Her left hand tightens on the black rectangle, swiping it down and slamming it to the concrete. Zaku's hands raise, and Tenten's seen this technique before, seen how sound rushed from them and how Lee's ears had started to bleed. The boy taps his hands together, like he's clearing them. His arms are still bloody from the way the sound had gotten clogged up when he was fighting Lee, from the backlash of his own attack exploding before it could escape him.

"Don't let him finish that move!" Tenten shouts, voice coming out before she remembers to shut up, that she doesn't know either of these people. Zaku's hands go into one single sign, the air around his palms beginning to look just a hint charged. Temari should act now, before he's done.

Temari glances up at her. The _nerve_ —to completely ignore her fight, to look up as though she doesn't even care, like she isn't even interested in the ninja about to attack her. Tenten's breath catches, her throat goes dry. When the other girl's lips raise in a lazy smile Tenten's hands go so tight on the railing her knuckles turn white. "Don't you worry," Temari says, words slow, almost bored. "He won't."

In one swing of her arm the rectangle opens into a wide fan, one single purple dot visible at the top. The fan itself is beautiful, the workmanship gorgeous, the type of weapon Tenten has had actual dreams about owning, or, better yet, _creating._ In Temari's hands the fan seems to come alive, more beautiful than just as an object, and in one swipe through the air, one sharp movement of Temari's body in the extension of her elbow and twist of her hips, a massive attack of wind flies free. Zaku's hands get out one tiny burst of sound before he goes soaring backwards, head banging on the wall of the arena and his already battered body making several uncomfortable noises upon impact. Temari flicks her fan shut, arm muscles flexing and her shoulders straining just a bit on her purple dress. She clicks the fan back in its spot on her back. Tenten has to pretend she's not staring, but if she knows herself then she knows that she's definitely staring, and blatantly, too. Temari turns expectantly to Hayate-sensei, an eyebrow raised.

"Winner: Sabaku no Temari," Hayate-sensei says flatly.

Tenten has, maybe, probably, forgotten how to breathe. She can see in the joint of the fan—it isn't even fully opened. Temari hadn't even struck with full force. She hadn't even been trying. Temari didn't even have to _try,_ and Zaku was a sad crumpled tissue on the concrete currently being carefully peeled off the floor by medical nin.

 _Oh my god._

Tenten wants to be like _that._ She wants to be able to defeat people like Zaku in one blow. To leave them a mess while she walks away, cool and confident and _strong._

Temari exits the arena by walking up the wall—which looks unfairly cool, in Tenten's opinion—and goes to stand next to what Tenten assumes is the rest of her team. One of the boys, the redhead, doesn't really seem to notice her presence. Tenten thinks this is unrealistic. Temari is the type of person to be noticed. The other boy, the one with purple lines drawn over his face and a hood pulled over his hair, says something to Temari and then nods his head in Tenten's direction.

Temari glances back at Tenten over her shoulder. Tenten turns away so quickly she might have given herself whiplash. "That fight was not very youthful," Lee says disapprovingly. He clicks his tongue, shakes his head.

"I don't know, Lee," Neji says, looking at Tenten and she really doesn't like this at all. "Tenten seemed to think the Suna girl was just . . . _full_ of youth."

"Shut up," Tenten hisses. Gai-sensei turns to her very seriously and Tenten straightens her spine. "Strength is . . . born from, uh . . . "

"The power of youth," Gai-sensei finishes. He nods again, still uncomfortably solemn. "But respect for your fellow shinobi, is, too, part of youth's gift."

Tenten privately thinks this doesn't make any sense at all. Outwardly, she nods, holding in her relieved sigh when this seems to satisfy him. She turns back to the digital board, watching Hayate-sensei set it to spin once more. Just watching Temari fight made Tenten feel twitchy, restless, as though her energy was starting to reach a point of no return, where she had to release it or she would just go up in flames. She wants to fight. She's going to win. She's—

 _Nara Shikamaru versus Tenten._

Oh, she's _so_ going to win.


	3. free-for-all

sasuke's left leg is the only thing that has EVER looked out for him. the only real one folks! enjoy

* * *

 **girl at the end of the chain**

Tenten leaps down into the arena. She's got two storage seals out already—her two big ones, with the fancy axes in them—because she wants to end this one quickly. When she lands she's already pulling them out and halfway to unwrapping her scrolls, just a wrist movement away from having an explosion of metal fly free.

At least _one_ of the people fighting has some enthusiasm. Shikamaru doesn't share it.

He takes his sweet time, coming around the balcony and ambling down the stairs, hands in his pockets and head tilted back. Figures. He's staring a little boredly at the ceiling, but she glares anyway, rolls her eyes anyway. He's a Nara, after all, and Nara men are known for three things: their genius, their laziness, and their general disregard of women. She's got Shikamaru pegged for all three, because while she'd been a year above him in the academy, she'd always been one to listen to people, and she had heard a lot of things about him. He slept in class, generally belittled his female comrades, and probably thought way too highly of himself. Tenten's aware of her surroundings; she pays attention. She paid attention to the up-and-coming genius. Up-and coming, that is, if the academy teachers could just get him to do his work in the first place. Tenten's happy this is her fight. She's going to show Shikamaru where his attitude's gonna get him someday: staring up the end of a weapon.

People like Shikamaru make her feel ugly inside. People like Shikamaru make Tenten go alight in flame. People like Shikamaru—boys like Shikamaru—have always thought they were better than her. He's wrong.

Shikamaru finally takes his place opposite Tenten in the arena. He stretches a bit leisurely, blatantly ignoring any of the urgency in the situation. He takes a while to even look up at her. When he does he looks her up and down. When he meets her eyes, one of his eyebrows is just barely raised, his expression just a bit unimpressed, his stare bored. It's clear he took a look at her and he finds her lacking.

("Tenten has a great chance of winning," Gai-sensei's saying. "She has a year of experience on the Nara."

"You haven't met a Nara before, have you?" Shikamaru's sensei asks, all self-assured, just a little mocking, and Tenten kinda hates him.)

Tenten tries not to let this bother her. She clenches her hands tight around her scrolls, fingers turning white from the effort. If she loosens her grip she's pretty sure her hands will start to shake. She tries not to let her expression waver. So many fucking people find her lacking. So many people see Tenten and see an extra. Average. Boring. So many people see her and are unimpressed. Every stranger must think it. Sometimes she's sure even her own team does. There's no way Gai looks at his team and thinks they're all equals. There's no way Lee or Neji see her and don't discount her. There's a reason it's Tenten who plays the fool.

Who would believe Neji is a fool? Who would believe Lee is a fool?

Tenten's eyes go, without her permission, to Temari, up on the stands. No one would ever believe Temari is a fool.

Hayate-sensei looks between the two of them. Tenten stares back at Shikamaru again and a piece of her hates him. People like Shikamaru have been on a mission to become shinobi with countless people behind them. People like Shikamaru, people who can't even imagine playing the fool, people who think they're better than her and who think they _know_ they're better than her—Shikamaru has never been like Tenten. Tenten's been at sea, sailing alone. Her life has been a scramble of pulleys and levers and oars. Hayate-sensei looks between the two of them. Shikamaru raises one hand in a lazy sort of "I'm ready" symbol.

A piece of Tenten, a piece of her buried inside her heart like a shard, something someone stabbed her with and she healed around, hates him for that.

"Go," Hayate-sensei says. Shikamaru leans his head back, stretches, his shadow coming forward. Tenten flicks both her wrists and her scrolls go up in smoke.

When Tenten's scrolls fling open, the weapon rain is usually overwhelming for people who haven't experienced it before. She isn't just flicking an arsonal around randomly. Tenten's the best with weaponry in her year, maybe in all the genin at large. When her scrolls swish open around her and she frees the weapons inside every angle counts. She's aiming.

Tenten doesn't miss.

Shikamaru's shadow goes desperate, searching for a spot in a weapon's shadow and trying to grab at her, but she throws too fast and she leaps back within her smoke cloud. When it clears Shikamaru's pinned to concrete. Only Tenten's aim saved him. She threw harshly enough to pierce the arena walls. In two hops and a skip her elbow's in his throat, his clothes ripping as she forces him out of the hold her knives made. He chokes, stumbles, falls down a bit. She lifts her leg, slams her knee into his chin. Shikamaru's head jerks back from the blow, banging hard against the concrete arena wall. His eyes go all wide and he makes a desperate move to sweep her legs from under her. Tenten steps to the side, slams the palm of her hand to his nose. It cracks. Begins to bleed. He falls, eyes rolling back.

Tenten's being cruel. She doesn't care.

Shikamaru falls at her feet, clatters down the same way her weapons do, and she feels great. She looks up at the people up on the balcony, looks at Shikamaru's sensei. She copies his look from before, copies the incredulous expression he'd made when Gai-sensei dared to imply she could win. His eyes are all wide, mouth slightly agape. Shikamaru's on the floor like crumpled paper. He fell to the floor like one of her weapons.

"Winner," Hayate-sensei says and she fucking hates how he sounds surprised, "Tenten."

 _Damn right,_ she thinks.

Only two people are cheering for her: Gai-sensei and Lee. They're two twin figures of howling enthusiasm. She hides a laugh. When she looks over at Neji there's something almost like a smile on his face—nothing like Lee's grin, nothing like Gai-sensei shouting, "Amazing job, Tenten! Amazing job, my youthful student!" Neji isn't the type to cheer for anyone, sure, but there's an expression in his eyes that looks a little too much like pride. She likes that her team is proud of her. Of course she likes that. But that's normal. They're her team. Of course they would cheer for her.

Everyone else is silent. Most of them look surprised. Shikamaru's team looks angry, shocked. The Yamanaka girl's face is all twisted, her delicate hands in tiny fists at her sides. Tenten smiles at her. The Yamanaka girl's face starts to flush red. Tenten allows herself to look over to where she knows Temari's standing. The girl's smile feels like a punch to the gut—in a good way. She's grinning with all her teeth, a laugh curling up from her throat. Tenten breathes—in, out—tears her eyes away from Temari's face, and heads back to her team.

"Tenten!" Lee says. He's practically got stars in his eyes. She feels all fond, all warm when he grabs her shoulders and shakes her. "What an invigorating display of youth! You inspire me beyond words!"

Something about Lee's words makes her relax. Her muscles loosen and she practically melts into one of the haphazardly-arranged chairs on the balcony. She isn't tired—that fight had been easier than the babysitting D-ranks she does with the team—but the relief is so strong she can't breathe. It's over! She won! Of course she won—of course she won, duh, of course—but she won! "Thanks, Lee. You're gonna do great in your fight." Lee gives her a thumbs-up and she laughs. All—most—of the little shard of hatred in her chest has melted away. She won her fight. She won her fight! Maybe she just got lucky and had an easy matchup, but a win is a win and she earned this. She'll take what she can. Tenten's learned by now people aren't gonna hand her shit.

Gai-sensei hands her a bottle of water. The condensation makes it slippery to hold. Tenten cringes at the dampness. She doesn't really need it—the actual fight had lasted for a minute at most—but she accepts it anyway because it's harder to refuse something from him than to explain why she doesn't really need it. She cranes her neck so she can see into the arena, standing from the chair and going back towards the railing. Tenten watches dispassionately as medics rush into the arena and lift Shikamaru's limp body onto a stretcher. He makes an unconscious noise of pain. They won't set his nose unless it's serious. Tenten doesn't smile but her lips twitch. A few more people rush in to collect her weapons for her—she'd better get those back. She'd used the scrolls with the fancy axes. Shikamaru's body-on-a-stretcher disappears through the double doors on the other side of the arena. Hayate-sensei takes a moment to make sure everyone's settled down—really, nobody's settled down, they're just kind of silently gaping at Tenten—before he nods and red characters flicker into existence on the board.

 _Aburame Shino versus Uchiha Sasuke._

Sasuke—Tenten turns to look. He looks less bad now, but still pretty rough. Sasuke starts a slow walk towards the stairs, supporting himself on the railing. He's trying to hide a limp and he's not sure if it's working. A few hours of medical attention did a lot, but not enough. The mark on his neck aches. His shirt has a high enough collar; hopefully no one can see it. Maybe it looks like he's so unconcerned about the fight he's just taking his time.

Sasuke thinks, suddenly, of the last guy who acted so casual about his fight. Shikamaru lost in less than forty five seconds. Hopefully there aren't other people following that train of thought. He forces himself to take normal, even steps down the stairs. His left leg aches.

"Do you best, Sasuke-kun!" Sakura calls. She'd been so worried about him, but she does her best to hide her concern about him. When he turns back to look at her she's smiling, one hand cupped around her mouth like she's trying to make herself a megaphone. Naruto opens his mouth to speak and Sasuke, very quickly, turns back around. His team doesn't need to be acknowledged right now.

"Don't lose, bastard!" Naruto shouts. Sasuke's playing the asshole, as per usual, but he got the shit beaten out of him earlier, so maybe he could use some support. "We still gotta fight!"

Sasuke very firmly does not turn to look. Doesn't need to be acknowledged.

Shino's already been down in the arena, having taking his place to the proctor's left. He shifts on his feet just a little, head tilting up when Sasuke takes his own spot across from him. This fight isn't going to be easy. Shino works hard every day during training, but his chances against someone like Sasuke depend entirely on how fast he can get his bugs out.

"Kill him, Shino!" Kiba screeches. Shino looks up at him and nods, although . . . he doesn't think he will be killing his opponent.

Sasuke doesn't feel concerned.

The proctor looks between the two of them. "Alright," he says. "Begin."

Within a second Shino's stance changes completely, arms raising. A swarm of insects spills from his heavy sleeves in thick black lines and Sasuke leaps back—his left leg loudly announces disapproval to this action—and he ducks under the insects, trying to come in close for a punch now that he's avoided the attack—

His fist freezes inches from Shino's face. He itches all over, with his hand shaking midair. But—he dodged, didn't he?

"You should be feeling much weaker now," Shino says. He doesn't sound bored or smug. It's just factual: Sasuke should be feeling much weaker now. "Why? It's because my insects are sapping your chakra." Sasuke's hand shakes, inching only a bit closer to Shino's face. Shino doesn't even back away. It's true that something does feel like it's being—sapped. Sasuke stumbles backwards, movements sluggish. Something feels like it's being eaten away, but—

Sasuke scratches one hand up, pulls back his collar. The seal inked fresh and ugly on the space between his shoulder and his neck is starting to wither, to vanish. It's not sinking away into his skin. It's being unwritten.

He can feel it when his chakra comes back to the surface, when his chakra starts to circulate again—it's not like the insects ate away at him. They ate away at . . . a toxin. He's cleansed. He's refreshed. The halfway smirk starts to build before he can remember to hide it, before he can remember to hide his advantage from Shino, but it's too late—Shino displays no outward shock but his shoulders go unbelievably tense beneath the jacket and he leaps backward just in time to avoid Sasuke's kick.

(His left leg howls.

Sasuke doesn't have time to be in pain. His left leg can fucking shut up.)

"You should not be moving," Shino observes, doing rapid fire dodges as Sasuke sends kunai flying. He's not sure where he went wrong. There shouldn't be any way to avoid the chakra drainage, not unless Sasuke had some kind of store of it. But storing chakra takes more control than a genin could ever have. Shino slides under a well aimed kick. Sasuke whirls around, eyes flashing. "Why? Because—"

"Shut up," he snarls out. People like Shino—people who are weaker than he is—don't get to speak to him. People like that are just disgusting. _Gain power_ —so he will. Sasuke goes through hand signs so fast his hands blur. "Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu!"

Fire explodes out of Sasuke's mouth, so strong his throat burns and his already dry lips start to crack. Shino's arms come up to protect his face, flames pouring around him, coating him like honey, so hot his jacket sleeves start to burn and he can smell something burning, can smell some awful smoke as if it's coming in with the flames or being left in their wake and—

The flames go past and die against the concrete wall. Shino lowers his arms. He looks around. The floor is covered in insect corpses. Sasuke's mouth is all twisted in something that isn't a smile. He's victorious. "You've lost," he says. He's just a tone above sneering, above mocking, above smug. He's breathing hard and he says, "Those insects were your only weapon, right? You've lost." Weapon. Weapon. Tool. His insects are dead. Shino's sleeves are singed. He is burnt. He should feel that. He should feel heat and warmth and pain and burning. Instead inside him is just cold.

(In the Aburame Clan, insects are implanted inside a child's body before they can walk, before the umbilical cord is cut. In the Aburame Clan the insects are joy and friend and there before other people are.)

Sasuke's right. He's right. Without the insects Shino can't win. He doesn't have any other way to beat Uchiha Sasuke. His skill with weapons wouldn't be enough to beat someone with the Sharingan. He can't win now. But the bugs weren't just a weapon. Shino stares at the floor. He'd known these insects from birth, had lived through cycles and cycles of birth, had talked to six, seven, twenty queens of the colony. He'd known every bug's chakra signature even more intimately than he knows himself. They're dead now and he will never live through another cycle again. He will never see any of this particular colony again.

He had named them. They all had names. They are all dead. Something inside him feels ugly and raw and cold. Sasuke killed them and Shino can't win. There's only one choice left so he takes it.

"I forfeit," Shino says. It comes out too quiet, his voice grated down. The smell—the smell is awful. The smell is so awful. Shino forces himself to look up, says again, louder, "I forfeit."

Sasuke stands across the arena from him, the length of a traveling fireball. He looks beaten down and ragged, just the way Shino feels. He looks cold, cruel. His mouth is still all warped, a smile that's not a smile, his eyes too hard. There's a block of ice in Shino's chest and it won't go away. His hand twitches, the signal for his colony to come back into him.

"Then the winner of this match is—" The proctor cuts himself off with a hacking cough. Sasuke can't help the irritated huff of breath that leaves him. Shino doesn't say anything. He doesn't move. Sasuke's never really seen Shino move much, but even in the face of defeat he's emotionless. The proctor coughs some more. "—Uchiha Sasuke."

No one cheers. That's okay. Sasuke doesn't need some empty praise. He needs to become stronger.

No one cheers. Shino is fine—more than fine—with this. If they'd been cheering . . . Shino doesn't know what he could have done. What he would have. He is, all of a sudden, tired. More so than he'd been for the entirety of this exam. Exhausted tears prickle at the corners of his eyes and he blinks them back because he's a shinobi and shinobi don't show their emotions. Shinobi don't cry. Instead he nods stiffly to Sasuke, waves away the medics that come up, swarming around him and asking if he needs their assistance, and begins the long walk up to his team. Kiba's staring all wide eyes.

"Shino," he manages to get out, manages to croak.

"I am fine," Shino says instinctively, automatically. His voice cracks a little on the last word. It's not acceptable. Shinobi don't show their emotions. Kiba's clutching Akamaru too tightly, tight enough it must hurt. Shino doesn't want to look at Akamaru. He doesn't want to think about Akamaru. Kiba's holding Akamaru like that because he just watched Shino lose his Akamaru. Kiba's holding on so tightly because he just watched Shino's insects get taken from him. When Shino looks down at the arena, people have come out to sweep the insect remains off the floor. The chuunin helping out with cleanup are sweeping the insects up and throwing them away. His insects are dead. His insects are in the garbage.

The world doesn't stop. The board begins to spin again, letters dropping into place. The shock of it, of the fight, of Shino being so soundly beaten and losing his family in the process, has already faded. The other genin are staring up at the board now, hoping for their fight to be next. The letters drop into place. Hinata gasps.

 _Akimichi Chouji versus Hyuuga Neji._

Hinata's eyes fly straight to her cousin, but he's not looking at her. He's staring down at Chouji. "You better win, Neji," Tenten needles him, elbowing him in the side. He spares her a single annoyed look. "It'd be pretty embarrassing if I made it through prelims and you didn't, huh?"

"Ridiculous," Neji says without looking at her. "Of course I'll pass."

She rolls her eyes. "What, is it 'fated?'"

This time he does look at her, slightly indignant. "Yes," he says seriously.

She puts her hands up in surrender. "Alright, alright," Tenten says. He sniffs in offense, turns back to the arena.

"Good luck, Neji!" Lee claps an arm on Neji's shoulder. Neji turns visibly uncomfortable at the contact. "As my rival, I have no doubt you will be the victor!"

Neji stiffens a little. Turns just a bit, his eyes—always so empty—flashing. "Of course I will be the victor," he says, very slowly. Lee falters. Neji shakes his hand off in a jerk of the shoulder. "When have I ever lost?"

Lee blinks. He looks a little confused at where the conversation went, his round open face a contrast to Neji's pinched expression. Tenten sighs fondly and pushes him toward the arena. Neji, unsurprisingly, does not budge upon being pushed. "Yeah, okay. Just get out there."

He looks down on her for a second more but turns around, walks over to the stairs. The other kid—Chouji?—is already down there. Tenten watched him give his team a thumbs up before walking down, watched the nervous but just slightly hopeful way he was bouncing on his feet. He's waiting, but Neji doesn't seem bothered or rushed by it. He walks down to the arena calmly, with dignity, back straight, posture immaculate as always. He won't activate his Byakugan yet because he doesn't want to waste chakra, but he does a preliminary scan of the arena and takes note of any odd holes and trenches in the ground. There's a huge swath of burnt ground where Sasuke'd scorched the ground and killed Shino's whole colony, which had been unfortunate but unavoidable.

He takes his place down in the arena, looking over at Chouji for only a bare second. He's not impressed. If Shikamaru weren't unconscious, he'd definitely relate to the superior glaze on Neji's silver eyes.

"I'm looking forward to a good fight," Chouji offers, trying his best to smile. Neji glares sharply at him. There's nothing to look forward to. Neji will win, simple as that, and Chouji will lose. There is nothing to look forward to about this fight. Neji doesn't get it. There's nothing more than disgust for losers.

He looks over toward Hayate-sensei, who glances between the two of them before saying, "Start."

There's a moment—less than a moment, really—of a stillness, and then Neji _moves_.

Neji doesn't give Chouji any time to react. He coats his legs in a thin sheath of chakra and darts over to where he's standing, activating his Byakugan and looking for any major chakra pathways, and finding them, too. They're different on the Akimichi because of the expansion jutsu but Neji spots them quick enough—one on each of his forearms, thighs, calves, and two each on his stomach and chest, chakra pathways that are bigger than usual, a little flatter, built to accommodate a sudden flood of energy.

His fingers move too fast to follow. One hit, two, three, four, five—it's not possible to keep count. It's only a few seconds and then Neji takes a step back. Chouji stays standing just long enough to see the disdain in Neji's regal face. Chouji falls.

"Winner," Hayate-sensei says, voice as shocked as rest of the people in the room looks, "Hyuuga Neji."

Neji sniffs delicately. It's all a very noble, fancy display. Tenten breaks from the stupor of watching a boy get completely destroyed to start clapping, hands frantic in her attempt to make up for the moment of no movement. "Go Neji!" she shouts.

He gives her a look that would likely kill anyone not prepared for it. She grins. When he climbs back up the steps and takes his stop with Team Gai Lee and Gai-sensei don't say anything. Finally, Lee says, "That wasn't very youthful, my rival."

Neji replays the same look he'd given Tenten. Lee, remarkably, does not drop dead.

"C'mon, guys, c'mon," Tenten urges, trying to dispel the tension. "Let's watch the next match!"

"Now that the team has fought," Neji says, "I don't see why we have to stay and watch the rest."

Gai-sensei gasps in shock, physically recoiling from his student. "Neji-kun!" he cries, appalled. Tenten forces in a sigh. "The youthful comrades of this exam cannot be ignored!" When Neji doesn't look particularly impressed, Gai-sensei pulls a hand to his chest in exaggerated horror. "The fights we watch here are explosive with youth—"

"—the power of youth—" Lee adds in, coming up next to Gai-sensei. Tenten prays they don't make a display. Gai-sensei's eyes start to glisten with tears. She physically restrains herself from hiding her face in her hands.

"—the strength of your comrades—"

"—the loyalty of your brethren—"

"Please stop," Tenten says, holding back an exasperated grin, putting a hand on each of their shoulders. "I think you're overwhelming him." But she doesn't stop them. Neji's looking more irritated, a little more disheveled, with every word Gai-sensei and Lee say.

"But Tenten-chan!" Gai-sensei begins to cry just a little from the force of his own emotions. "The power of so many youthful students gathered in one place—" Lee begins crying in earnest. Neji looks disgusted by the entire thing.

"Hey look!" Tenten cries, pointing. "The next match has been announced!" Their tears dry within moments. She hates that she feels so fond. "And one of them is a Konoha nin," she adds enticingly, nudging at Lee's shoulder.

"My comrade," Lee murmurs reverently. It's creepy. She pointedly looks away.

Down in the arena, a girl with hair so bright red it looks like molten iron is pointing at herself confidently. "My name is Uzumaki Karin!" If Tenten had a drink in her mouth, she'd have spat it all over herself. "I'm gonna kick your ass!"

The other kid, Kiba, blinks at her long and slow. "Uzumaki who," he says. Karin's face goes red as her hair.

"Karin!" she shouts, snarling like an angry animal. Her eyes go over the balcony and the red in her cheeks intensifies. "Hope you're ready to get the shit beaten out of you!"

Hayate-sensei looks tired. He doesn't even react to Karin beyond a slow dip of his head, beyond a done-with-this sort of people. Tenten can relate. "Start," he sighs, and immediately Akamaru jumps out of the front of Kiba's jacket to land beside him. Kiba mutters something to him and the two of them attack in tandem, dog and boy completely synchronized.

Akamaru's legs bunch up for a powerful leap but Kiba runs all the way past her, quickly spinning on his heel and using the momentum to bring his leg up for a strong kick. Karin dodges right into Akamaru's path, red hair leaving an afterimage as it chases after her. Kiba glances at her, the beginning of a smile forming on his face, Akamaru's mouth going open and his tiny puppy teeth all sharp flashing white.

Karin snatches Akamaru out of the air by his scruff so harshly a choked off yelp echoes in the arena and she leaps swiftly back out of Kiba's reach. She keeps her eyes trained on the boy as she slowly draws a kunai out of her pouch. She won't shake. She won't let herself shake. The dog—the puppy, really—is shaking just a little. Karin holds the edge of the kunai to Akamaru's neck and tries to ignore the dog's pathetic whimpering, the way his tiny feet kick in midair.

"You move and I kill him," she says. Her voice doesn't shake. Kiba freezes in place. His face is still distorted into a half-snarl. It's like the world around him stopped being realistic, like he's watching her with Akamaru and not knowing what he's looking at. Karin shakes her arm, the movement shaking her red hair from her shoulder, and Akamaru yelps. She wants to say she feels strong right then, that she feels like a goddess of victory, all vivid colors and her sharp kunai, but it just makes something cold curl up in her stomach. She wonders if Sasuke's watching her. She should feel good. She was smart and she grabbed the dog and now she's going to win, or she'll kill him. She should feel good. "Surrender now! Is winning this match worth more than his life?"

"I—" Kiba starts, face hardening, and Karin shifts her grip on the kunai so its point digs into his dog's fur. Akamaru goes still in her grasp, breath so soft she can't hear it. She hopes she hasn't cut him. Maybe she has. Maybe she'll have to.

"I'm warning you," she says, willing her breathing to come out even and her voice to come out smooth. "You want me to kill him?"

Kiba flinches back and reaches forward in the same movement. "I give!" he cries. "Please don't kill him! Please don't—"

"The winner of this match is Uzumaki Karin," Hayate-sensei announces.

Karin drops both dog and kunai ungracefully onto the floor. Akamaru lands on his feet and takes a few steps, but the kunai hits concrete all loud and metallic. The noise makes her want to flinch but she didn't hold a knife to a puppy's neck just to flinch after. Her legs feel shaky so she follows her instinct and drops to her knees. Akamaru bounds over to Kiba, whose arms are open and ready to catch him. Watching the dog nuzzle into Kiba's neck makes the cold spots in her stomach grow larger—Karin looks away.

"Akamaru! Are you okay, boy?" Kiba presses a kiss to Akamaru's forehead and then, unable to resist, quickly follows up by planting a flurry of smooches onto the dog's face. Akamaru wriggles in his grasp and Kiba lets him go, reluctantly. Akamaru turns his head toward Karin and barks. She stares. She reaches up and adjusts her glasses, pushes them up to the bridge of her nose. Kiba's about to round on her for threatening to kill Akamaru—what the _fuck_ —and for the way his heart is pounding and there are scorch marks on the floor from Shino's insects when Akamaru sits and his tail starts thumping against the floor of the arena. "Akamaru?" Kiba asks uncertainly.

He looks down at Karin, to where she's sitting on the floor with her legs bent clumsily on either side of her. He takes in Akamaru's lack of hostility and he takes in the tears budding in her red eyes.

Kiba scoffs at her. "Whatcha doin' on the floor?" Karin looks down at herself as though not realizing she'd collapsed in the first place and scrambles to get her feet under her, going up so fast she almost trips. Kiba reaches out almost unintentionally to steady her. As soon as he realizes it he looks up, makes eye contact with her, and shoves her away. Karin stumbles again. He'd feel guilty if he were looking at her and not her kunai, abandoned on the ground.

"I—I'm sorry!" Karin says. The words spill out of her mouth on their own. "I never wanted to kill him, I promise I never woulda killed him I just really wanted to win and—"

Akamaru barks sharply, cutting her off, and leaps at her again. This time she catches him with both arms on instinct, folding him to her chest and cradling him like she'd cradle something made of glass. Akamaru's head pops up and he immediately proceeds to start covering Karin's face with dog spit. Karin stands there and takes it like a champ. She smiles down at Akamaru and promptly gets licked in the mouth. Kiba crosses his arms over his chest and nods approvingly.

"Okay," he concedes. "Fine. That was a good plan . . . but if you ever try anything like that again, I'll gut you and let Akamaru eat your dead body, got it?"

Karin looks up from where she'd been staring at Akamaru with something in between wonder and adoration on her face and nods vigorously. "Got it!" she says. If she weren't holding Akamaru she would have her hands raised in surrender. "I love dogs, I swear, I'd never—"

"Ugh," Kiba says, cutting her off. He waves her on with a hand. "Jeez. I get it already. Come on, we can talk up in the stands. If you want. I don't think Akamaru's gonna get off you any time soon."

Karin nods again, following him up and into his section of the stands. Her team's somewhere on the other side of the arena but she doesn't care. Ryo and Daigo have never liked her. Ryo bites her when she doesn't have to and Daigo's eyes are always cold and they never treated her well. It's been only a few minutes since she met Kiba, and the only interaction they've ever had just took place and lasted for about two minutes, and Karin threatened to kill his dog, and she trusts him probably more than any other living person.

As they're climbing the stairs, though, something—someone—waves from over the railing. He's wearing a bright orange jumpsuit, an unruly shock of blond hair on his head, and his face is all dirty and scratched up. "Hey!" he shouts, directly into her ear. Karin flinches away from him and sends him a venomous glare. Her grip on Akamaru tightens just slightly, before she remembers herself and softens her hands over his fur. "You're Uzumaki Karin, right?"

"Yeah," she says. "Why? You wanna fight me?"

"No," the boy says, laughing loud and clear. She scowls. "My name's Uzumaki Naruto! You've got my name!"

Karin starts. She can't help it. Her frown melts from her face, eyes all wide. "Really? Are you serious?" The angry tilt to her mouth resurfaces. "You better not be pranking me, punk!"

"Hehe!" The boy—Naruto, whatever kind of name _that_ is—grins, arms crossing behind his head. "I see my reputation's traveled even to Kusa. That's why you picked that name, right?" She stares at him. "Right? I'm so cool you wanted to be just like me, right?"

She stares at him. Kiba stares at him. "No," Karin says. "That's just my name." She turns to Kiba. "Is this guy stupid?"

Kiba laughs and that makes her smile but Naruto makes an offended noise. Then it's like he realizes something, like he pulls on the face of a detective.

Naruto gives her a considering look before his face smooths out and his eyes widen in what she's assuming is either shock or understanding. "Hey . . . hey! Wait a minute! Then we both just have the same name?" He points at her like he's accusing her of something. Karin inches just a bit closer to Kiba. "You know what that means, right? We're family! Karin, you're my family! That's great! You shouldn't live with those Kusa jerks—well, I mean, I don't really know anything about them but they've gotta be jerks if they aren't letting you live with me, right? You should come live with me! You can sleep on the couch," Naruto says, as though it's the most generous offer in the world.

Karin twitches. Sure, she'd love to get away from Kusa, but she doesn't think it really works that way.

"Dude, talk to her later," Kiba says. He grabs her elbow and steers her away from Naruto. Akamaru cuddles against her arms. "The next fight is gonna get announced soon."

"Hey, hey—wait!"

"Talk to you later," Karin says dismissively, and keeps walking. She's following Kiba over to his team, to this girl with eyes like silver discs and a boy hunched up in a big coat—his teammates—and a beautiful woman—his sensei. The sensei smiles at her. The cold spots in Karin's stomach melt away. She walks right past another girl and catches herself glancing into her eyes—for a second Karin thinks they might be purple, but then in a blink it's just a warm brown. Tenten looks back into Karin's red eyes and doesn't think anything of it when Karin walks away.

Tenten watches after her, watches the Uzumaki girl smile a little bit shyly at the rest of Team Eight. Kiba throws an arm over her shoulders and uses it as leverage to push her closer to his teammates. The fight hadn't looked like much, but still—Uzumaki Karin. Tenten whistles. "She could be good one day. Great, even. And . . . she's Uzumaki. Neji, she's _Uzumaki._ "

"And?" Neji asks, completely disinterested. So what if she's related to the Uzumaki kid? Quite frankly, Neji doesn't care. Tenten's mouth turns down just a little bit. How annoying. He doesn't get it. "Is that important?"

Tenten gives him a stare. It's one of those ones that says, _You should know better, Neji_. "Have you read any of Konoha's law books?" she asks, like it's a normal thing to do.

"No. Why would you ask me that?" Neji asks, sending her a disgusted glare. "Hinata would have, though, if you want to know something. Don't bother me with useless questions."

"No, I've read them," Tenten says tiredly. Every now and then she'll look at him like she's seeing something incredibly unbelievable in his face. "It's important for clanless shinobi to know the rules in and out if we don't want to find ourselves on the wrong side of the law."

"And? Why is this important?"

Tenten heaves a sigh and rolls her eyes. "Okay, fine, you big idiot." His eyes narrow. "I'll get to the point. Konoha has a legal claim on all Uzumaki. After Uzushio's fall it was mandatory that all clans hailing from the village come to Konoha for refuge, probably out of fear that people with valuable bloodlines and information would go to other villages." She's in full lecture-mode, in top form, even pointing a finger a couple times. He bites his tongue on the urge to tell her to shut up. "At the time everyone was pretty okay with it, because there were tons of adult Uzumaki—a few would slip through the cracks here and there. But now any surviving Uzumaki would probably be seriously coveted by villages for their chakra. Kusa probably thought she was a treasure, but . . . " Tenten frowns, thoughtful, maybe a little uncomfortable. "But now that the Hokage knows she exists, he's not gonna let her get out. And since Kusa's weak, they'll have to hand her over or face, well, you know, total annihilation."

Neji furrows his brows impatiently. "Yes, and? That's not my problem."

Tenten takes a deep, controlled breath. "You're such a jerk. Do you know that?" He opens his mouth to speak and Tenten speaks before he can. "Okay, whatever, not your problem."

"I, for one, think you are most youthful! The well of information you command is truly astounding!" Lee says, before Neji can so much as open his mouth. Lee's eyes sparkle with admiration for her and she softens immediately.

"Lee! How am I supposed to stay mad at Neji if you keep being so—so you?" Tenten reaches out and ruffles his hair. Lee puts his hands up in an attempt to keep her from messing his hair up but she manages to get past his defenses. She puts him in a headlock and gives him a vicious noogie.

Tenten laughs at him but her eyes go back to the Uzumaki girl, to Karin's red hair and red eyes. Her hold loosens and Lee wiggles free, suitably rumpled. Karin looks up while Tenten's still staring and their eyes meet and for some strange unknown reason when Tenten looks in those red eyes she can almost see a reflection there, can almost see herself in this girl.

She isn't. Tenten's not an Uzumaki or a clan kid at all. But she still looks at Karin and feels like she's got her hands pressed against glass, like she's on the outside looking in at something she's known all her life.

Karin looks away. The moment breaks.


	4. are you a winner or aren't you?

a/n: falterth wrote more than half of this chapter... i worship them as my god... please make an ao3 acc and shower them in love thank you love you enjoy...

* * *

 **girl at the end of the chain**

Tenten's leaning against the railing for the next fight, watching Temari's brother flow down into the arena from a stream of sand. He looks a lot younger than his sister—younger than Tenten, even. He might even be younger than the Konoha rookie genin, than Naruto and Hinata and all them. His face doesn't reveal anything about how he feels on the match up; the girl he's been paired has a twist on a smile painted over her face. It's not an attractive remix. She's a pretty girl, with long dark hair and eyes in a perfect almond shape.

She looks too angry to be beautiful, though.

When Gaara takes his spot, looking up at her, the girl's face warps even more. "I'm getting to the next round, kid," she spits. "You won't beat me." Gaara doesn't speak or even move at all.

Hayate-sensei looks done with the event entirely. "Begin," he sighs out, long-suffering.

Kin has several senbon in her hand, held between her fingers, before Hayate-sensei even finishes the word. She sends them flying, each one sending out a twinkling little ring—the sound is too cute to match her vicious face, the tight clench to her jaw. The cork pops from Gaara's gourd and lands on the arena floor. Sand flashes out, too fast for sand, and each senbon gets consumed within the mass of it, bell getting cut short. Gaara flicks his hand and sends them to the floor. The noise of them, of the senbon, just briefly made Gaara's eyes go human with confusion, but now he's back to staring, vacant. Sand starts to spill out of his gourd, slow and foreboding. His face doesn't change. Kin's mouth, sharp and revealing all her teeth, only twists further. More senbon go flying, each accompanied by a little sparkling jingling sound—they hit a wall of sand and go dead silent.

Kin's eyes widen.

"You can't win against me," Gaara says. He sounds bored. "Die." The sand rushes forward and Kin twists out of its grasp—it curves to follow her and she dodges again, senbon between her fingers and held like talons—but she dodges right into a path of another swipe of sand. It surrounds her and Kin starts to scream when it reaches up like pale fingers to cover her face. Gaara holds up his hand like it's a claw, and starts to make a slow fist. Kin's body breaks in audible cracks and then he fastens it, hand turning to a fist so quick and with so much force his nails dig crescents into the sand covering his palm.

Blood explodes out of the sand and falls to the floor, a rain of what used to be the girl named Kin. It's disgusting. When he releases his hand there is no body.

"Winner: Sabaku no Gaara," Hayate-sensei says. Tenten's mouth is dry.

Gaara looks around the arena. Sees people's faces. Most of them look pale, worried, scared. They always do. When people see him they always look like that. It doesn't bother him. There are gagging sounds coming from the general area of Uchiha and his team but Gaara's not concerned about that. People always gag. People always recoil. He likes it. They always look scared when they see him. He'll have to separate the blood from his sand later, if Mother hasn't consumed it all, but that's worth it, for the way Mother goes quiet and the way everyone looks at him after. For now, he lets the sand flow sluggishly back into his gourd. He doesn't want these people to keep staring at it or at him. When he walks back up the stairs he looks into the faces of children and inside all of them they share one thing in common when they see him: fear.

His throat itches on a cough or a laugh, maybe both. Everyone's scared of him. Good.

Mother is sated. Her screams have died down into quiet murmurs, hushed angry whispers, and she'll be asking for more blood later but right now she's a small presence. She's satisfied. He'll let her drink this girl's blood. He killed her for Mother. It's only fair Mother consumes it.

Gaara climbs up the stairs to stand between Temari and Kankuro. His sister looks terrified and also like she's trying not to look terrified. "G-good job, Gaara," she manages to say. Gaara looks up at her and she shrinks away. When Gaara looks over at his brother, Kankuro edges away from him. That's fine. Gaara isn't going to kill them. It'd be too much work. There are lots of other people to kill. Why are they scared? They would be too much work to kill. Gaara doesn't understand. He doesn't try to. He likes when people are scared but coming from his siblings it's merely annoying. Gaara tends to do bad things when he's annoyed, but there's no point right now. Mother's not calling for him to hurt anybody. Not yet. He doesn't have to right now.

His team's separated from everyone else, so when he finally takes his attention away from Temari's shaking lip and Kankuro's clenched jaw, finally turns to stare over at the other teams, the commotion surprises him. Instead of paper-white shock on their faces, most of the other genin are angry, furious, shaking not in fear but rage. More than one jounin-instructor is regarding him with cold eyes, watching each inhale he takes with a dispassion Gaara knows to associate with the passion of anger and murder. Gaara doesn't scoff but it's a close call. This is the shinobi world. Dying is a regular occurrence. If these ninja are angry about death they should quit.

Or maybe they should act on their anger. Maybe they should try to corner him in a darkened room or the shadow of a building under the sheen of night and see how well that works out for them. Maybe they should. Maybe he wants them to. Maybe they will, and he'll kill them.

Mother would like that.

Nobody does anything. The tension in the room is thick, heavy, but the red letters flicker into place on the matchup board anyway and the unrest in the room dies down, an anticlimactic resolution to what Gaara thinks is a boring situation. Gaara doesn't care. People die. Sometimes he kills them. So?

 _Rock Lee versus Kinuta Dosu._

Dosu—the teammate of the girl he'd killed—pushes away from the railing, wrenching his eyes off Gaara, and makes his way slowly down the stairs, moving like he's walking through water or ice.

Dosu can't fight like this. Kin is dead and he's fighting the kid who almost killed him before. If not for Zaku—currently being tended to by medics for twelve broken bones and a sprained ankle, among other things—he would have been nothing but a pathetic splatter on the ground last time he fought Lee. This time nobody will save him. He's exhausted from his fights in the forest—from fighting Lee, from Sasuke beating him down—and he's exhausted from Orochimaru's show of disappointment—and his right arm is broken and he thinks he's pulled a muscle in his left. His legs hurt to walk on and he has to force himself to take every step. Zaku is away and Kin doesn't even have a body left to bury. There is no one to cheer for him but everyone seems to be encouraging his opponent.

He takes his place beside Lee and does his best to scrounge up some of his usual bluster. "Ready for a repeat of our last fight?" he asks, shifting his stance. He tries to dig up some confidence and is promptly outshone.

"I am confident the outcome will be different this time!" Lee exclaims, shifting into his own stance. "There are two major differences!" He holds up two fingers, smile so genuine it actually pisses Dosu off. When he lists the reasons he actually counts them off on his fingers. Dosu hates him. "I am refreshed whereas you seem to still be weak from our fight! And your comrade is not here to save you!"

Dosu growls. It's not a pretty sound. He hopes Lee has enough compassion, or youth, whatever he calls it, to leave him alive at least. Orochimaru-sama won't be happy if he loses—they hadn't been happy when Dosu failed in the forest; his broken right arm aches as though in memory—but there's nothing else to do. Dosu'll try his best. He'll be a loyal soldier. He'll be a good ninja, but if the fight gets too severe, if he looks death in the face the way Kin did, he's surrendering. It's better than death. He doesn't think Orochimaru-sama will kill him, but he's not sure. They'd said they would.

At least a delayed death is better than an immediate one.

"Start," the proctor says.

Lee charges forward. In the second before his opponent reaches him, Dosu brings up the arm with a possibly pulled muscle and ignores the way it screams at him, sending as much chakra as he can stand through it. Maybe he can get a soundwave out. The chakra starts to build, sound beginning to hiss in his arm—Lee's closing in on him. Dosu barely dodges a kick, Lee's leg coming so close he can feel the rush of wind. If he can hit the boy with a blast of sound he should be disoriented enough to—

Lee's foot slams into his chest. He intends to follow up with a punch but Dosu somehow ducks out of the way, managing to dip back on his damaged legs. What a youthful maneuver! Lee dives in for another hit—with an opponent so respectful, someone so unwilling to give up while being so obviously injured, Lee owes it to them to give only his best. Dosu's got a strong fighting spirit. It's only a regret Lee has met him in the arena and must beat him down, but those are the rules of the competition. Lee will not suppress his own youthful spirit for the sake of an opponent!

Dosu's right arm is out. It's deadweight. He can't channel chakra into it. He can't build up the pressure he needs to create any kind of damaging sound, not when the break is so close to his wrist and the metal he uses to modify his chakra is mangled almost beyond repair, pressing uncomfortably into him. His hand dangles uselessly from an equally useless wrist. He can't even use it to throw kunai. It's useless. He hadn't been able to take it off and Orochimaru-sama had warned him not to go to the Konoha medics unless he'd absolutely needed to. No one is allowed to draw attention to themselves. No one's allowed, but Zaku's in there being treated by the same Konoha medics Orochimaru-sama had told them not to see. Dosu just hopes Kabuto was able to get to him first.

He gives up on his right arm and dodges out of the way of another one of Lee's unbelievably fast kicks. Lee grins at him. Dosu scowls. It hurts to use his left arm and every time he spins to avoid a hit his left ankle protests louder and louder, screaming at a higher and higher pitch. He won't stop until it snaps underneath his weight. Orochimaru's watching; Dosu won't stop until his legs go completely shattered beneath him. His right leg is—is messed up. He's not sure what's wrong with it but he knows he's got some bruises so deep they reach the bone and his kneecap feels off somehow, wrong, out of place.

He's just about built up enough pressure to release a blast of sound and is bringing his arm up knowing his muscles are going to hate him in an hour when Lee nails him with a kick to the head. Dosu goes down, legs buckling beneath him. He tries to stick out an arm to catch himself but he can't use his right so he lands hard on his left and something snaps. His head hits the concrete and his ears ring. He sucks in a heavy breath, tries to keep breathing even though his vision is spinning. His head throbs. Lee must be wearing metal plating under his jumpsuit because it felt like a wall had crashed into his temple. He's probably got a concussion. Dosu hopes Kabuto can treat him after this, if he survives it. But he won't let Kabuto heal him if Zaku still needs attention. The rest of the team comes first.

Zaku comes first, now.

Lee stomps on his back. There's a crack. It echoes in Dosu's ears. His eyes feel so wide and his body aches, heavy and broken. Dosu's ribs pulse out sharp stinging pangs—he knows they're cracked. Maybe worse. Fuck. _Fuck._ Lee flips Dosu over with a his foot and lands a heavy blow to the pit of his stomach. Dosu's breath rushes out of his lungs and he tries to breathe but he can't and he flails desperately, choking on something, shaking—he manages to spit out blood. He's practically useless right now. He can't move, he can't breathe, and just when he thinks the lack of oxygen combined with the pain radiating from every single part of his body might actually do him in, his breath comes back and he sucks in as much air as he can. He's lightheaded.

"I forfeit," Dosu says, voice cracking. He sounds like he's begging and he hates it. Orochimaru-sama must be watching, must be disappointed. Dosu can't think about that right now. "I forfeit!"

Lee backs off immediately, looking toward the proctor.

"The winner of this match is Rock Lee," Hayate-sensei says. His body shakes with a suppressed cough.

Dosu's lying with his back to the ground, arms splayed out on either side of him, one leg bent up in pain and the other lying limply in place. He tries to get up but can't. He's contorting and thrashing like a newborn, like an animal, like an invalid. Lee draws close to his side and sticks his arm out. "Let me help you up!" he insists. Dosu swallows down the blood he wants to spit. "I will assist you!"

Dosu looks at him with his one uncovered eye and the depth of it, of his loathing, of the way his entire body shakes in pain and anger both. Lee recoils but keeps his arm out in case he's reading the situation wrong. Neji tells him he can be a little stupid sometimes, usually followed up by a smack on the head from Tenten because she doesn't like when Neji makes fun of him. Lee doesn't really believe Neji—after all, he is brimming with youth and he doesn't understand how someone such as him could ever be stupid—but he's cautious just in case.

"Get away from me," Dosu spits out, pathetically weak, like a cornered rat. He doesn't need Lee to pile humiliation on top of his defeat. He forces himself not to glance around or search for Orochimaru in the stands.

"Right! I will leave you alone then," Lee says, nodding seriously. He'll go back to the stands with his team and hope his opponent's youthfulness helps him to recover. That is something he can do. He has experience with being unwanted. It's never bothered him before—and if it does, no one will ever know about it. Lee knows what it's like to be unwanted. He smiles at Dosu with all his teeth. "Farewell! May the power of youth burn brightly within you!"

Dosu makes an aggravated sound, baring his teeth, struggling uselessly on the ground, and Lee decides to hurry on over to his team. He turns around, avoids smacking into two of the medic-nin that'd come out of the arena doors, and quickly jogs back to Tenten, Neji, and Gai-sensei. Each step feels light, freeing, and it's sick but he isn't weighed down at all by the body he left behind.

"Wow, Lee," Tenten says, crossing her arms over her body. She looks at him appraisingly. "That was—that was something, all right. You really had him beat from the start."

"Nonsense!" Lee replies. He offers her a strong thumbs-up. "It was a battle of wills, and he was putting a healthy amount of youthful vigor into his fight. Nonetheless, I respect his efforts!"

Tenten smiles at him and reaches out with both arms. Lee returns the offered hug enthusiastically, wrapping his arms around Tenten's back, hers automatically going to his middle. "You did good," she says warmly. "You were awesome down there when you stomped on him. I think you broke some ribs." She pulls away and grins at him. "And, hey, who knew, right? I guess even you have a bit of a mean streak, huh? Offering him a hand when both his were broken."

He laughs. "It would have been most unyouthful of me not to offer my assistance!"

Lee steps away reluctantly when Gai-sensei clears his throat. "Ahem. Well done, my youthful pupil! All of you shall advance to the third round. I am glad to see my teachings have brought you this far!"

Tenten rolls her eyes fondly. "Yeah," she says, jerking a thumb towards her other teammate. "Maybe tell that to Neji. He doesn't seem to be feeling the youth."

Neji frowns at her. "I have no use for such nonsense," he says. Lee gasps.

"Neji!" Lee wails. "How could you betray our team like this? Have some respect for Konoha's youthful spirit, please!"

Tenten gives Neji a scathing look and pulls him in by the collar so his forehead is almost touching hers. Her eyes are like burning coals attached to his by wires. He doesn't flinch from her but she can tell he wants to. She doesn't pretend to talk quietly. She just likes throwing Neji around. "If you don't stop with this asshole stuff," she says, sharply, voice pointed at him like a knife, "I will kick the shit out of you after this is all over. You will be in the hospital and Lee and Gai-sensei will visit you every single day."

Neji lifts his hand and delicately pries her fingers out of his shirt, raising an eyebrow in disbelief. Tenten wants to smack him. If he doesn't stop, she might. Seriously, she gets it. He's her teammate and she loves him just like she loves Lee, but she can't help but feel like he goes too far. It's not funny, even though Lee seems fine with it, and it's not nonsense like Neji thinks it is. Gai-sensei and Lee have dedicated their lives to being youthful and manly and yes, Tenten jokes about it—in fact, it's easy to joke about and even Lee joins in on the ribbing sometimes—but Neji goes so far with it.

When Tenten laughs at them, it's a fond laugh. With Neji it's almost like he means it. It's like he's disgusted by them.

"You couldn't even touch me," he says dismissively, and Tenten's jaw clenches so hard she thinks she might break a tooth. She tries to take a deep breath, tries to tell herself to be calm and cool and collected like every real kunoichi should be. She doesn't think Senju Tsunade or Uzumaki Mito would approve of her unsealing her scroll, of flicking a ninjato up into her hand and swinging it at him with the intent of taking his head off. She's pretty sure they wouldn't approve of her going after Neji with any intent to seriously harm him at all. No. She's not going to do anything now . . . but it's damn tempting.

"Now, now, my youthful students," Gai-sensei breaks in. He puts a hand on Tenten's shoulder and one on Neji's, placating. Neji jerks his shoulder, shakes Gai-sensei's fingers off. Something like hurt crosses his face before he replaces it with a smile. "You are interrupting the spirit of youth! Take an example from Lee-kun over here. He is watching the next fight in the hopes that he will gain insight by spectating!"

Gai-sensei's right. Tenten, with great effort, sets her temper aside and forces herself to turn away from Neji. "We'll talk later, okay?" she says. It's more of a demand than a question. Neji shrugs carelessly and Tenten heads over to the railing before she loses it and seriously goes after him.

Ino and Kankuro stand in the arena facing each other. Tenten's not familiar with Kankuro's fighting style but she is with Ino's, from the one joint training session her team had had. Yamanaka Ino uses her clan's jutsu as a crutch and relies too firmly on Shikamaru's ability to paralyze her opponents. If Kankuro decides to use taijutsu, Ino is done. She's got some talent breaking genjutsu, but unfortunately for her, Kankuro looks too heavily-built to specialize in it. Ino's hands are shaking just slightly. She's got a smile on her face, all confidence and nerve.

"Start," Hayate-sensei says, and Kankuro takes the thing wrapped up on his back off.

It's a puppet, Tenten realizes. It's a fucking _puppet._ Tenten smiles down at the arena. Ino seems to realize her fortune, too, if the almost-feral grin on her face is anything to go by. Tenten leans over the railing, not enough to be in any sort of danger of falling but enough that it probably looks as though she is. "Get him!" she shouts. "Rip his eyes out!" Okay, she'll admit that's unlikely to happen. But the irritated look Kankuro sends her way is nothing but hilarious. Maybe she goes overboard when she's cheering.

No. Impossible. "Gut him!" she adds, just for good measure, knowing perfectly that's not going to happen. Hayate-sensei sends her a sour look and she shuts up, waving her hand lazily at him.

Ino grins with all her teeth, the expression like she thinks everything Tenten's said is valid advice. "Don't worry," she says. "I'm gonna!"

"Your youthful spirit is impressive," Lee says, grabbing the back of her shirt and hauling her back onto her feet before she actually leans too far. "But be careful. It would be most embarrassing for you to fall. I wouldn't want your youthful spirit bruised!"

Tenten laughs, ruffles his hair, but plants her feet firmly on the ground and settles on just leaning heavily onto the railing. Below in the arena, Kankuro's unwinding the wrapping around his puppet. He doesn't hesitate to send it rushing toward Ino, arms out and ready to incapacitate. His fingers twitch delicately, so softly Tenten almost can't see it.

Ino doesn't move. Kankuro's brow furrows. Why won't she get out of the way? His eyes harden. If she's really that stupid, it isn't his problem. He won't hesitate to kill her. The ninja here in Konoha might be soft, might hesitate to kill here in the arena, might glorify it as mercy—but Kankuro was born and raised in a village where softness, where mercy, equated to death. The desert is unforgiving and so is he. If she's stupid, that's not his problem.

Ino's brow twitches in the beginnings of what looks like a frown and Kankuro goes on high alert. As long as he keeps moving and doesn't let her aim her clan's jutsu at him, he'll be fine. His puppet's almost touching her when she suddenly brings her hands up in the infamous Yamanaka triangle handseal, looking straight at him. Kankuro quickly leaps out of the way, hoping she'll miss, but she's not aiming for him. At the last second she turns to face his puppet.

There's a bare moment—less than a second, probably, less than half a second—where Ino's face goes devil, her smile twisting, going sharp. And then—

"Shinranshin no Jutsu!"

Shit. Shit. _Shit._ Kankuro realizes what she's doing a second too late, can't catch his balance from his dodge and can't focus on both his chakra and not falling over. He finds his feet and cuts at all his chakra strings, fingers going free—left index finger free, middle finger free, ring finger free, pinky free, right index finger free—he goes completely still. He tries to move, to twitch at his fingers, to cut off the rest of the strings, but he can't. His body has a new master.

Ino smirks with Kankuro's face and rolls his shoulders in a mock-stretch. "I forfeit," she calls out in his voice. She wiggles her fingers, a little dramatically, a little bit to make herself laugh. She can feel Kankuro in his own head, writhing against her hold. _As if you stood a chance,_ she mocks. He howls under her grip. She's feeling good about her win—she's Yamanaka Ino, and she's a fucking winner—but she can still see Shikamaru in a heap and Chouji falling over onto himself. If her teammates—those two boys she'd known forever, the ones who constantly reminded her she was the weakest link on Team Ten's chain—lost so badly, she probably doesn't have the space to get all confident. This was a lucky match.

"Winner: Yamanaka Ino," the proctor says. She pulls Kankuro's face up in a grin. Ino takes a few seconds more to walk around in Kankuro's body, even as her own stands frozen and still. It's _funny_. As if he'd ever stood a chance. Sure, if she'd gone against someone else, someone like Sasuke, or even Tenten, really, she might not've won. She got lucky with this matchup. She got lucky with some asshole who thought she'd be easy to beat. She isn't easy to beat, right? Her chest goes hollow only briefly, her heart stuttering like it's gonna fall from her chest down into her stomach. When she withdraws from Kankuro's body and has the unique experience of crash-landing back into her own her entire body shakes when she snaps back into it.

Kankuro collapses immediately, knees buckling. He gasps for breath. What a drama queen. Ino climbs back to where Asuma-sensei's waiting for her with shaky legs.

She won. She did it.

She isn't easy to beat, right?

Ino's the only one of her team to win and she's the only one who didn't need to be hospitalized. That means something, right? Maybe she got lucky and they didn't. Shikamaru told her before this began she wasn't ready for the chuunin exams. _We're probably the weakest genin team,_ he said, looking her up and down and then up again, eyes all flat and dark and judgey the way they got sometimes. But he's in the hospital after getting beaten up so badly it'd made bile rise in her throat and she's a winner. That means something, right? "That's it for the preliminaries, right?" she asks. "Please tell me that's it."

Asuma-sensei nods. "That's it," he says. "Congratulations, Ino." He's looking at her like he doesn't recognize her. _I'm your student,_ Ino wants to say. _You know me. You knew I could win, right?_ He sighs out a breath, nice and slow. His hands clench into fists and then go slack again. "You did it. I have to say it came as a surprise, but . . . I guess you're the only one advancing to the finals."

A surprise? Ino's face twists. Already her victory's feeling dirty. Did Asuma-sensei not think she could win because she's a girl? Did he think she was gonna lose because she's pretty, or something? Worse still, did he think she was a loser because she's ugly? Does he think she is somehow weaker than Shikamaru and Chouji?

She loves those boys like brothers. Watching them get beat like that hurt. She'll admit it—Chouji didn't deserve to be beaten so badly, and yeah, watching Tenten's knee connect with Shikamaru's face so solidly the crack of his nose breaking echoed made her stomach turn, but come on. She loves those boys like brothers, but she isn't stupid. They're way closer to each other than they are to her, and they make sure she knows it.

Shikamaru had it _coming_. Asuma-sensei must know that. He had it coming! Ino hopes someone fixes his nose, because it would really suck if he was ugly for the rest of his life just because he was kind of an asshole at age twelve, but he had it coming! She'd always been the only one ever motivated about training, the only one who went completely all in on Asuma-sensei's dumb drills. Ninja tag—was she nine years old? But when Shikamaru sat down for a nap and Chouji sat right next to him, Ino was the one running around like a little kid through the trees on Asuma-sensei's demand. She practiced _tree walking_ on his demand. She's been doing that since she was five. They're clan heirs. She isn't some unpracticed child. Does she complain? No.

Chouji's happy to train if Shikamaru hasn't sunk his claws into him for the day, happy to train if Shikamaru's happy to train, but just as damn happy to sit his ass down under a tree if Shikamaru's doing that. Chouji likes Shikamaru better than he likes her, so most days she doesn't even try, just goes and trains by herself and leaves Shikamaru and Chouji and Asuma-sensei to play shogi and eat barbeque. She's lucky her dad's cousin Santa is always willing to train, when he's not taking shifts in T&I.

A _surprise._

Is she easy to beat? Apparently yes.

"Thanks," Ino says thickly. Asuma-sensei isn't even looking at her anymore. Something in her stomach gets twisty and ugly. She's happy about her win. She won quickly and she won smart. Kankuro's glaring at her so angrily she'd stick her tongue out at him if she wasn't a ninja and above that kind of immature thing. He's still shaky on her feet—that's funny. She likes that. She beat him. Yamanaka Ino is a winner.

Still, she glances over at where Tenten's team is. It's a tiny glance, completely subtle, hopefully not with any kind of heat in her eyes, but Ino stares over at Tenten and at the two amazing ninja on her team. She's on a team with a taijutsu genius and a Hyuuga genius and still, she's not demeaned. Tenten's an equal there. Ino doesn't do jealousy because it's unattractive but she'd be lying if she said she didn't wish her team was a little more like Gai-sensei's.

When she met that team in the forest Shikamaru pushed her out like a sacrificial lamb and she pulled her hair out of its ponytail and smiled real pretty at that Hyuuga genius. _You're too pathetic to even fight,_ he'd said to her.

 _It's true,_ Shikamaru agreed, looking over at Ino with that dark judging look. _We're probably the weakest genin team._

"After they announce whatever they're about to announce," Ino says distantly, looking over at whatever Asuma-sensei is looking at, which turns out to be Kurenai-sensei, "let's go see Shikamaru and Chouji in the hospital."

"Sure," Asuma-sensei readily agrees, even pausing to look at her to acknowledge the question. The two of them turn back to the arena. Anko-sensei's down there tapping her foot against a scorch mark on the dirt, one hand rubbing her chin and the other one planted firmly on her waist.

"Hmm," she says loudly. Ino wants to be able to do that—she looks like she's not even trying and Ino can hear her all the way over here. "Well, I guess you brats who won made it through to the third stage of the exam." She sighs, huffs, like this is all a huge chore. She looks like a total badass. "In case you're all astronomically stupid and forgot, here's who won: Hyuuga Hinata, Sabaku no Temari, Tenten, Uchiha Sasuke, Hyuuga Neji, Uzumaki Karin, Sabaku no Gaara, Rock Lee, and Yamanaka Ino. Good job, you little worms!" She pauses to clap only a bit sarcastically. The smile pulling at the left side of her face is ridiculously beautiful. She's the coolest ninja Ino's ever seen. "Uzumaki Naruto has an automatic bye into the third phase. Lucky little maggot. You're all dismissed! Third stage takes place in a month. Your jounin-sensei will tell you where it is, 'kay?" She stretches, arms going above her head as she extends her fingers toward the ceiling. Ino's eyes go almost intentionally to Anko's chest. She flushes red all over immediately and stares firmly at her dark eyes instead. Ino could never be that brave. Even just the bare hint of her stomach showing in the space between the bandages she's got wrapped around her waist and her shirt makes Ino feel all itchy inside. She hopes Anko didn't notice. The half smile on the other kunoichi's face turns into a full one, a full grin with teeth too sharp. "I'm gettin' tired," she says. God, Ino hopes she didn't notice. "Hayate, let's go."

Hayate nods and the two exam proctors body flicker out of the arena.

Tenten sighs. "I'm glad we have a whole month," she says. Lee's nodding along eagerly in a way she's learned means he doesn't understand her point but wants to support her. She claps her hands together, determined. "I've gotta make sure I have a food plan! Gai-sensei, Lee, Neji, I'll see you all later."

"Of course!" Lee cries. "See you at a later date!"

"Good job, Tenten!" Gai-sensei adds.

Neji kind of glances in her direction. It's a lot from him.

Tenten speeds past the small hoard of genin on her way to the exit. The proctors have cleared a path through the forest in the form of a purple barrier keeping out the monsters, which, thank the gods, Tenten didn't really want to have to fight her way through this thing again. The small trip back to Konoha takes about half an hour at full speed, purple barrier blurring as she leaps from branch to branch, careful not to go too high and slam into the top of it—it's a valid concern. Tenten tends to jump high when she travels quickly. Her legs ache just slightly by the time she leaps down from tree to the street and has to leap up onto a roof.

Fighting in an international ninja exam is tiring. Who knew?

The first thing she does is stop by her home and grab enough money to buy a month's worth of groceries and set it on the dining room table. The second thing she does is take a shower.

God, Tenten has missed showers.


End file.
